


The President's Girlfriend

by Omnessicfaciunt



Series: P.O.T.U.S. [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Political Drama, West Wing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-02 13:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnessicfaciunt/pseuds/Omnessicfaciunt
Summary: “They're from her, I talked to the messenger myself! He said the President took ten minutes to write the card and she went through three drafts.”“What’s it say, Kara?”“It says, ‘Thank you for joining me last Friday, I had a great time.’ There’s a smiley face at the end.” Kara began to laugh at Lena’s silly attempt at being normal by adding that—as if it could possibly downplay filling someone's office with flowers.“Nice catch, Kara!” She turned from person to person as they gave her thumbs up or clapped her back.“Wait, what?”“You’re the President’s girlfriend!”(This is the short version)





	1. President Luthor

It was a beautiful, crisp April morning. The sun had just broken over the horizon, the coffee pot had just finished brewing, and Mike had just gotten a call from his boss, Cat Grant, announcing that the building was officially open for the day. It was time for Mike Mo’Neil to perform his most dreaded task of the day: waking the President of the United States.

Mike waited patiently as the phone rang several times before anyone picked up the other line with a nearly inaudible, “…what.”

“Good morning, Madam President. It’s Mike here—”

“What could you possibly want right now?” The woman’s voice was horse and groggy with sleep. Mike would be willing to bet that the President still hadn’t even opened her eyes yet.

“Ma’am, it’s 6:30 and…”

“In the morning?”

Mike tried his best to hold back his chuckle. “Yes, Ma’am. You have a meeting with Mr. Olsen and senior staff followed by the Northwest American Fisheries Foundation.” Mike couldn’t stop his eye roll at the amount of useless things taking up the President’s time.

“Who the hell is this?”

“…Ma’am?” There was nothing but an unhappy groan and some shuffling noise. He seriously doubted that the President had actually sat up in bed. More than likely she had just rolled over and put her head under the pillow. Mike raised his voice a little to compensate for the pillow. “Madam President, I really need for you to dig deep right now. It wasn’t a nightmare. You really are the President.”

There was a muffled groan followed by a gentle “fine.”

“I’ll have the stewards bring up some coffee and oatmeal to your room.” Mike dropped the receiver of the secured phone line back in its cradle and began making preparations for the President’s breakfast and morning meetings.

A half hour later and Mike was walking up to the steward and his tray of untouched food outside the President’s bedroom.

“Bill.” He said half-disappointedly, half-exasperated.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been knocking every few minutes or so, but I don’t hear the shower running either.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mike said dragging his hand down the side of his face. The President had been up well into the early hours of the morning on a call to Japan and finally gone to bed not three hours earlier.

Mike entered the blacked-out room and flicked on the nearest lamp before walking over to the extra long king-sized bed holding about a dozen pillows and two bodies hidden beneath the fluffy comforter. Having been placed in this position many times in the past three years, Mike knew better than to simply flick all the lights on and throw the comforter off the bed.

He walked slowly to the left side of the bed and used a discarded stuffed animal from the floor—this morning it was a giraffe—to gently prod the pile of blankets until he found something more solid than a pillow.

“Madam President… Madam President, you need to wake up.” He whispered getting as close to the sleeping body as he dared.

After a few more fruitless attempts he simply gave up and called;

“Lena!”

When the President’s left hook came flying out from beneath the covers, he was prepared and grabbed it before she could give him yet another black eye.

“Madam President,” he said, “it’s now seven o’clock. You need to get up.”

“You’ve just committed a federal crime by assaulting the Commander in Chief.” Lena said as she slowly untangled herself from the mass of bedding. “How did you know I wasn’t going to be naked when you came in here?”

“The stuffed animals were a dead giveaway, Ma’am.” Mike went to the closet and pulled out the President’s robe before stopping in the bathroom to turn on the shower. “Senior staff are meeting in the oval office, so I’m going to stand here while you get out of bed, take a shower, and get dressed.”

“How about you let Bill bring in the good stuff while you get the hell out and I won’t fire you?” Lena said as she grabbed the robe from his hands and slipped it on.

“Fair enough, Ma’am,” Mike said heading towards the door. Any excuse to leave the room, even if it was in the form of a thinly veiled threat from a pre-coffee Lena Luthor, was a welcomed escape. As he took his leave, he could hear Lena gently trying to wake her son on the other side of the bed.

“Conner, sweetie,” she whispered, “It’s time to get up and go back to your big boy bed. Mommy has to go to work…”

Mike closed the door behind him and gave the all-clear signal to Bill before heading back to the office. And if he moved the president’s meeting back an extra 15 minutes the world surely wouldn’t collapse—poor Conner deserved as much of a childhood as he could get.

-           -           -

President Lena Luthor sauntered down the east portico towards the oval office looking completely put-together in a jet black suit skirt and a blood red blouse—quite the opposite of this morning’s wake-up call. If anyone asked, her outfit was chosen, as per usual, by one of the stewards the night before, but every one who worked in the residences knew by the color alone that six-year-old Conner had chosen the President’s attire that morning.

As Lena rounded the final corner she was greeted by her personal secretary, a short yet intimidating looking young woman named Jess.

“Good morning, Madam President,” she said, “Your 10:15 appointment has been moved to the Roosevelt Room.”

“That’s the American Fisheries?” Lena asked while taking the leather portfolio Jess offered her.

“Yes, ma’am, Northwest American Fisheries Foundation. They’re apparently gifting you a 100-pound salmon.”

“Jess, please make a note that, from now on, I shall not be accepting any more gifts of any kind.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jess went to scratch the note onto her pad, but stopped when Lena caught her arm.

“I was kidding, Jess.” She said with a smile. “But please have someone available to hold and carry the thing after they give it to me.”

Jess let out a quiet chuckle. “Don’t feel up to lifting a 100-pound salmon today?”

Jess and Lena shared a laugh as they entered the oval office after being greeted by the secret service agents stationed by the door.

“Good morning, Richard.” Lena said as she passed.

“Good morning, Ma’am,” he responded and murmured, “Atlas in the Oval with Phoenix,” into his wrist.

“Oh,” Jess paused as she left for her own office, “and Mr. Olsen asked to have a moment with you before senior staff this morning.”

“Is he upset about the speech last night?”

“He did seem a tad concerned, ma’am.”

“Well,” said Lena as she lounged on one of the two couches, “it wouldn’t be a Monday morning unless Jimmy was concerned about something I did over the weekend.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jess said as she left the office.

Lena truly made herself comfortable, crossing her legs and laying her arm across the back of the sofa as she picked up a memo from the portfolio to look over. James Olsen was just a couple years older than her, but the communications director loved throwing his seniority in her face any chance he got. Lena supposed it didn’t help that they had graduated with their bachelor’s in the same year together. Although they had become good friends along the way, James really did enjoy ruffling her feathers by playing the age card. And Lena didn’t mind that much considering she always called him ‘Jimmy’—a nickname he hated—whenever it was to her advantage.

This morning it appeared James hadn’t even bothered to hide the fact that he had slept in his office. He barged in through the hall door with his shirt completely un-tucked and wrinkled with his tie loose around his neck. Lena wondered if the man had gotten more than two consecutive hours of sleep since they had started her first presidential campaign.

“You skipped the whole paragraph!”

“And Monday morning it is,” Lena sighed. “Would you care for some more coffee, Mr. Olsen?”

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“Could’ve fooled me, Jimmy.”

“Don’t call me that,” James huffed and sat on the edge of the couch opposite the President. “ ‘Americans can no longer afford to pretend that they live in a great society’…and then nothing. You dumped the whole crime section!”

“We’re seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, and yet we still seem to be leading the world in defense spending and number of incarcerated citizens per capita. Is that what you wanted me to tell the American public?”

“But that was the kickass section.”

“Ahh, yes, let me think,” Lena began quoting, “ ‘We had 32,000 gun deaths last year. Great Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland—amongst other hoity-toity European nations—‘had 112 gun deaths combined.’ And then the bit about; are Americans are more homicidal by nature or do you think it’s because those guys have stricter gun control laws? Something along those lines?”

“It doesn’t really matter now because you cut it.” James said.

“Yes,” Lens put her memo down and turned to look him in the eye, “and it doesn’t really matter not because I cut it, but because your argument was invalidated when you handpicked the countries used to make your point.”

“With all due respect, Madam President, it’s a speech. It’s supposed to be inspiring and rhythmic and—”

“Completely full of shit? In that case, you nailed it.”

“Lena—”

“And here I thought what with being the President and all…”

“I know, I know,” said James, hanging his head in his hands; “you get the final say on the White House’s message.” James briefly wondered if having a President with a genius level IQ was truly a positive or negative.

“The press is going to need an explanation,” he continued.

Lena let out a bark of laughter, “For what exactly?”

“Well, now there’s this thing hanging out there.”

“A thing.” Lena raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes. ‘America’s no longer a great society’ then nothing. No explanation. No context,” He said. “So now there’s this thing.”

“And it’s just hanging out there?” Lena tried to put her most serious face on.

“Yes!” James exclaimed and threw his hands in the air.

“Buongiorno, Signora Presidente.” A petite woman with sun-kissed bronze skin walked into the oval office from Jess’ door.

“Margherita, tu bellissimo fiore!” Lena said as she got up to hug her press secretary. “Com’è stato il tuo viaggio?”

“Okay, what the hell,” she said, tossing her own portfolio onto the coffee table before sitting next to the President. “I literally spend two weeks in Rome and you know more Italian than I do!”

“Conner decided that since he couldn’t go to Italy with you, he was going to bring Italy to the White House. We’ve been consuming nothing but Italian movies, TV, and radio for the past 14 days.”

“How was the ancient city, Maggie?” James asked.

“I didn’t truly appreciate it until I heard that America was no longer a great society,” Maggie turned to Lena who had buried her nose in yet another overnight memo. “What exactly was that about?”

“With you out of the country, it wasn’t a great society, but now that you’re back…”

“She had moral reservations about the handgun section.” James lamented.

“I did,” said Lena, “and now there’s apparently a thing hanging out there.” She got up and walked over to the desk.

“I don’t know about a ‘thing’ per say, but there’s certainly a press room full of people wondering what you meant to say.” Maggie said.

“See!” exclaimed James.

“Did you see this letter from the Daily Planet?” Lena asked a blonde woman who had just walked into the room.

“It would appear to be a letter from the entire fourth estate, Madam President.” The blonde responded.

The blonde was none other than Cat Grant, the President’s Chief of Staff and her most closely trusted advisor. The woman had basically raised Lena, built an entire media empire by her forties, and had honestly gotten bored by the time she asked Lena to run for President.

She wasn’t the shortest in the room, but only just and that never seemed to matter since everyone, including Lena, felt awed by her commanding presence. Where as Cat could simply walk into a room like she owned the place, Lena had to be in full Presidential mode to get the same effect. The difference being that Lena downplayed her power dynamic any little chance she got while Cat magnified hers.

“These people are completely out of control, much like my senior staff.” Lena said with a small chuckle.

“I think they’re just frustrated by their own insignificance, Madame President.” Cat responded.

Maggie leaned over to snatch a copy of the letter from James’ stack of memo and files. “Are they trying to stalk the President or something?”

“I’ll agree to the shadowing,” Lena said, “but I draw the line at any journalist talking to Conner.”

Cat waved James to scoot over as she sat beside him on the couch. “Ma’am, I’m on the phone with these people twice a week at the very least. I honestly don’t know what they want at this point. It seems to change every time the wind blows.”

“What they want is an exposé on the presidential family,” said James.

Cat let out a hearty laugh, “They must be delusional. We gave them a ton of access during the campaign.”

“Yes, but that was nearly four years ago and the people want more,” James retorted. “And when was the last time we got some good, old-fashioned press like this? I think we should go for it.”

James was almost placated until Cat uttered the one phrase he absolutely couldn’t stand, “And it’s an election year.”

Lena decided to take control of the room before James flew off the handle. The thing about James is that he was the best speechwriter any candidate could ask for. He led many lesser politicians to great victories due to his way with words, and Lena couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to have him on her communications staff. But James absolutely hated running for office because it took up valuable time that could’ve been spent actually helping people.

“Talk to the Daily Planet again, Cat. Tell them I’ll personally interview their best journalist for the job and make my decision then. But one mention of Conner at all and I’ll remove their spleen with a spork—and you know I can do it because I’m crafty.”

The silence in the room lingered uncomfortably and Lena decided to take pity on her poor staff; they were so overworked that they couldn’t find the humor in things anymore.

“That was a joke—sometimes my Luthor genes just shine through. I trust you’ll craft my message well?”

“Yes, Madam President.” Cat answered as she started making notes on her iPad.

“Jess!” Lena called in the direction of her secretary’s office, “Can you have someone find Mr. Schott and drag him into my office?”

There was a loud crash from Jess’ office and they could just barely make out the secretary’s angry mumbling as Mr. Winn Schott came barreling into the Oval office with his glasses askew and a bruise already forming on his cheek. He pulled the armchair closer to the group and took a seat.

“I’m sorry, Madam President,” he said, “Jess keeps moving that damn filing cabinet in her office.”

Everyone had to smother a laugh as Maggie said, “That cabinet has been in the exact same place for the past three years, Winn.”

Winn Schott was the White House Pollster and while clumsy, he was one of the most likeable numbers whiz that could make nearly anyone sit through an impromptu lecture on polling data. He was one of the major lynchpins that led to Lena being elected president.

“Sorry, guys.” Winn took some time to get his massive stack of papers organized. “Good morning, Madam President.”

“Are you alright?” Lena asked.

“Yes, Ma’am.” He said and glanced around at the faces looking in his direction. “Oh! Right, well, okay. First, I wanted to say congratulations. Three years ago, we were elected by the smallest margin in history, and today 63 percent of voters think we’re doing an okay job.”

Senior staff gave a round of applause as Lena smiled shyly and ducked her head.

“Yes, thank you, but the poll also tells us what we already know: if we don’t get this crime bill through Congress these numbers are going to be a memory.”

“Winn, I want detailed projections for all target districts by the end of the week,” Lena directed, “James, you’re going to run the show on the hill.”

Winn shuffled through his files and pulled out a descent-sized stack for James. “Last nose count has us 18 votes short by the State of the Union in 30 days.”

“Jesus, Winn, can’t you just send this to me in a computer file?” James asked.

“No, actually. They won’t allow me to move this sort of information digitally—they even made me get an air-gapped computer.”

“18 votes in 30 days, everyone.” Lena announced. When she rose from her place on the couch, the senior staff rose with her. “Thanks for the meeting.”

She walked confidently to her secretary’s office with a chorus of ‘thank you’ from senior staff and stepped into the relatively small office with a “Jess, what’s next?”

It’s hard to believe the leader of the free world would be waiting patiently for her next directions in front of a secretary’s desk like a child at the principal’s office, but, then again, it’s hard to believe Lena Luthor would have ever been elected President.


	2. Ms. Danvers, Reporter

It’s a sunny and bright Monday morning when Kara Danvers finally arrived at The Daily Planet for shift. Not that there are really shifts when you’ve got a salary job, and that’s what she is now; a salaried employee with benefits and everything! But even without the little swipe cards and the colored calendars, the workday seemed to be standardized with an unspoken “in by seven” rule.

Kara exits the elevator at the 40th floor and begins distributing her tray of coffee amongst the other journalists in her bullpen. Journalists. Kara was officially a journalist—with four articles even! Okay, so only two of them were the sort of world-wide phenomenon that she can’t seem to replicate, but the point is that she’s here and working on becoming the best. She migrated back to her desk and logged on to see what her boss had assigned her for today.

There was no easy way to sugarcoat it, but Kara always got the puff pieces and inevitably scrapped stories. She didn’t mind, after all, she was the newest reporter here and clearly had some big shoes to fill. She managed to get some traction with her online blog during the campaign, but now Kara was left treading water in a field she had no professional training in and living across the country from her hometown.

Kara took another look at her blank assignments column before mentally preparing herself to go talk to her boss: Snapper Carr.

It’s not that Kara was afraid of him per se… but he never seemed to be particularly happy when she was around. She tried as much as humanly possible to avoid her boss at all times. Today she watched helplessly as two supernovas collided within Mr. Carr’s office. Rhea Gand, the chief White House correspondent was pacing around his office like a caged animal and Snapper himself looked poised to attack at any moment. Kara tried her best to ignore the angry shouting coming through the panes of glass. She couldn’t quite decipher what they were saying, but she didn’t necessarily want to find out either.

The top email in her inbox ruined those thoughts and prayers in an instant. “6:50 AM: Come see me now. –Carr” No explanation or hints, just a summons to the principal’s office like a small child. Kara gathered as much courage as she could find and braced for impact as she slipped unnoticed into Snapper’s office.

“The President’s pissed as hell, Snapper. That letter was a stupid idea!” Rhea was pacing and gesticulating wildly. Kara had never seen her like this. Normally she was always so cold and poised during her interviews.

“It was an aggressive move, and we’re sticking by it.” Snapper grumbled.

“This isn’t the little girl who needed Cat’s media empire to get elected anymore. She’s incredibly popular and she’s going to sweep the field come re-election. I honestly can’t picture anyone running against her with serious intentions. I cannot believe you were so stupid.”

“It’s not just me, Rhea,” Snapper said, “It’s all the major networks and print companies. They’re getting a wall of silence from the President and the tabloids—who quite literally make this shit up—are eating into our bottom line in massive quantities. People aren’t even visiting the front-page stories on our sites. They’re searching directly for Lena and Conner Luthor.”

“You know how she feels about the press and her family. I’ve known good journalists who were transferred to Yemen because they had the gall to even ask about her son…” Rhea was clearly about to start another tirade, but stopped when she noticed Kara doing her best impression of a potted plant at the back of the room.

“Who the hell are you?” She asked.

“I’m—”

“This is Kara,” Snapper cut in, “She’s going to be shadowing you today at the White House.

“Excuse me?” Rhea objected.

“She’s new and needs to find where she fits best.” Snapper opened a folder and started taking notes. The conversation was over and everyone in the room knew it, but Rhea just couldn’t let it die.

“I don’t need some blogger following me around all day,” she said. Kara couldn’t really take offense since she did get her big break after publishing her articles on a free blog platform. It’s not her fault that both articles went viral, it was an election year after all and people will hang onto anything they think is important.

“She’s not a blogger anymore, she’s one of us now and today I want her at the White House.” This surprised Kara, but her endless optimism wouldn’t let her down!

“We’re playing hardball with Lena Luthor, and I need a heavy bat,” Snapper said.

“This girl doesn’t know the first thing about White House reporting!”

“She’s the only reporter who publicly burned the Luthor family in effigy and survived not only the backlash, but seemed to get a promotion out of the whole thing. I need her there for window dressing so they know we’re serious” Snapper said with finality.

Kara felt that slap in the face more than she should have—so much for endless optimism.


	3. Conner the Clone

Lena walked the hallway towards her son’s room and already knew this was going to be a rather long night of tinkering for the both of them. Jess had come over earlier to help watch him after his tutors left for the day and they had been quite busy turning his playroom into a physics lab. She stopped by the open doorway to watch her son try and explain basic physics to her closest friend.

“And then the ball will roll into the next one and that’ll set off the dominos. Oh no, wait! Aunty Jess, we almost forgot to reset the rubber bands.”

“I’ll work on the rubber bands. You should fix the bouncy balls.”

“Please tell me this Rube Goldberg project started after bath time.” Lena said from he place by the doorway.

“Mommy!” Conner shouted and sprinted towards her to launch an attack hug.

“Of course, Ma’am.” Jess smiled. “How else would we have come up with such a great idea?”

“Jess says the best thinking happens in the shower.” Conner informed his mother. “But baths are pretty good, too.”

“I should say, this looks amazing! You guys are quite the team.”

“Cap and Bucky!” Conner yelled with a fist pump.

“Rock on, little Iceman.” Jess said as she made her way to the door. Conner crossed his arms and fixed Jess with his most fearsome ‘Luthor’ stare.

“You’re Iceman because you’re Captain America.”

Lena tried her best to suppress the chuckle that threatened to burst out of her at the look on Jess’ face.

“But,” Jess managed to get out, “you’re the hero and I’m the side kick. That makes you Cap.”

“Now you did it, Jess.” Lena couldn’t help but gang up with her son against her best friend. “He’s always Bucky.”

“I’m the experiment, Jess, I get to be Bucky. You can’t steal him because you weren’t in a tube.” Both Jess and Lena exchanged knowing glances before focusing back in on Conner’s mini-rant. He already sounded surprisingly like Lena when she decided to enchant an audience.

“You protect America because you and Mommy are all like pah and po-wow—and then the bad guys are all, ‘Ahh, save me, I’m not worthy, I did the bad!’” Conner lived up to his namesake by truly performing this little skit complete with battle noises, character voices, and a full-on death scene.

“Okay, but if I’m Captain America, what’s left for your mom?”

Conner cocked his head to the side and looked at Jess like she was an idiot who grew up under a rock and said, with the straightest face imaginable; “She’s Wonder Woman, duh.”

Jess nearly broke a rib in the explosive laughter that filled the room. Lena was barely standing; all thanks the unyielding doorframe. Poor Conner just looked at the two ‘adults’ in the room as if they were toys that had broke and needed to be fixed.

“And on that lovey note, I’m going to bed. Good night, you two.” Jess said and made her way to the staircase that led down towards the opposite side of the building. The mother-son team picked up the playroom as much as possible before Conner started to fall asleep on his feet. Lena could never understand how her son was able to keep his mind moving a thousand feet per second while his body forced him to shut down for the night.

He was only six years old, but was already mastering third grade mathematics and physics. His reading wasn’t much behind that and he was constantly asking to be taken to the library after school. She was worried about him in the first few years when private tutors refused to advance him further due to his young age, but they finally found a balance between work and play. The main problem was Conner thought schoolwork was playtime. It certainly helped having Jess around to watch him because she didn’t see him as a prodigy or a marvel, but simply Conner.

Lena was just tucking him into bed when his brain woke him up a little.

“No, Mommy, I liked the Rude Goalie game. Can we play some more?”

“Rube Goldberg, sweetie and we can’t because it’s bed time,” Lena said with a small chuckle, “You can barely hold your head up.”

Conner shifted a little to get comfortable holding his stuffed Hulk.

“Did I make you sad?”

“Why do you ask? I think I was laughing all night.”

“I said I was an experiment and Jess looked at you funny.”

Lena sat down on the edge of Conner’s ‘big boy’ bed and played with his hair a little. It was silky smooth and jet black just like hers.

“You didn’t make me sad. Do you like calling yourself an experiment?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I’m special like Bucky, or Stitch, or Spiderman, or Hulk, or—” he let out a giant yawn “—maybe the other parts of me are from a super hero.”

“I think Jess is sad because other people might think being partial clone might be a bad thing.”

“They’re just jelly, Mommy.” He laughed a little at Jess’ slang he had picked up. “I’m really just like every one else, but sometimes Jason thinks I’m better.”

“Why does he think that?” Jason was a third grader who volunteered to be Conner’s buddy at school. Conner only went to school for maybe two or three hours a day, but Jason helped the other kids see Conner as more of an equal despite his young age. Jason was also one of the few students who knew about Conner’s… unique birth and genetics.

“Because I can do the math in my head.”

Lena felt the wave of relief wash over her. She was always worried that someday her little boy would turn into her power-hungry mother who created him, but thus far nurture seemed to be kicking nature’s ass.

“As long as you’re happy and safe, I don’t really care what you call yourself.” She placed a kiss on his forehead and slowly rose from the bed, “but I’ve always been fond of the name ‘Conner.’”

“Moooommyyy.” Conner groaned and rolled over to hide under the covers. “Go to sleep, you’re silly.”


	4. Test Ban Boredom

Kara couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the amazing sunrise as she walked along the street towards the White House security gate. It was her second day shadowing Rhea Gand and she was not going to let her spirit be broken by this assignment. Sure she was only there to intimidate the White House staff and, yes, it might’ve been a moot point because no one actually knew it was her, but that wasn’t going to change anything. She was a reporter for crying out loud and she was going to prove herself!

This was her moment. There must be something she could write about today that would make Snapper happy. Maybe a story on how to take backhanded complements? No, that’s too magazine-ish. It didn’t matter though because the sun was shining, the sky was a crystal clear blue, she was wearing her favorite yellow sundress, and she was going to make sure someone remembered her today! She was going to make sure Rhea knew that Kara Danvers wasn’t a pushover! She was going to—!

Twist her ankle at the security gate and fall on her face apparently. Thank god she decided on flats instead of heels or she really would’ve ruined all of her careful planning.

“Please don’ kill yourself before we even make it into work today.” Rhea said without bothering to turn around or help.

Kara stepped up the guard right behind Rhea. Now’s the perfect time to restart her day and make a good impression.

“Hi,” she said with a smile, “I’m Kara Danvers.”

“He needs your license, Kara.”

“Oh, sorry! Here you go.” Kara handed over her entire wallet in her haste, “I’m from National City, out in California.”

“He’s literally looking at your license.”

“Sorry,” Kara said as her face colored slightly from embarrassment, “This is only my second day here and I thought that, well, seeing as I was so quiet yesterday that, maybe, I should speak up more, you know, and talk to people so they might remember me. I’m still new to reporting on this level.” She gave an awkward chuckle as the security guard handed back her wallet and prepared the press badge. “I guess you could say that I’m more of a minor league writer, but I should start stepping up to the plate, right? Sorry for all the baseball lingo. My sister played softball and I—”

“Kara, he sees over 300 people on the morning shift alone. He doesn’t care about you or your sister and I doubt he’ll remember your name.”

“Sure I will,” the security guard said, “Not many people take the time to chat with us.”

He gave Kara a soft smile to reassure her, but Rhea was already stalking off towards the White House.

“Kara Danvers, right?”

“Uh, yes, Sir.” She answered.

“You’ll do just fine today.”

“Thank you!” Kara gave the man one last beaming smile before scurrying to catch up with Rhea. Today was going to be a good day she could just feel it.

-           -           -

Lena was having a much better day than yesterday. She had woken up to a little troublemaker pushing her to the absolute farthest edge of the king size bed, but she couldn’t really complain. There was something oddly comforting about Conner trying to burrow into her ribcage despite the pain it caused when he kicked out in his sleep. How did birth mothers manage to house a kicking monster inside them? The President was in the middle of an education meeting, but she had spaced out eons ago because it was getting stupidly ridiculous.

“We are not talking school vouchers!” yelled Nate.

“Public education in this country has been on the decline since 1965—”

“Thomas, you can’t just—” Nate tried to interject, but all in vain.

“—Four trillion dollars and nothing to show for it but failing students in every measurable standard of performance.”

“Thomas, you’re not wrong, but we have bigger fish to fry,” announced Lena who definitely needed to stop talking about food. “Education is everything, but you guys are putting me to sleep with this circular logic. We don’t need little changes like vouchers and funding, we need gigantic monumental changes. Schools should be palaces and the competition for the best teachers should be deadly. We need to start funding education like we used to fund national defense; incredibly expensive for the government and absolutely free for the kids. I want the air force to hold a bake sale to afford their next jet, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Madam President.” They chorused.

The President sighed heavily and stood up from her chair while every person in the room followed suit.

“That’s my position, I just don’t know how to execute it yet. Tom, get off the damn mountain and find me some bill I can pass that will actually do some good—not just another funding amendment.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Lena walked swiftly out of the Roosevelt room and quickly made her way back to Jess’ desk outside the oval office. Mike walked by and passed her a sandwich wrap and drink on his way out of the offices.

“You are a god send, Mike.” Lena said as she held the wrap like it was her last meal on earth.

“Yeah, you just like me because I’m your quinoa dealer.”

“Someone has to be,” said Jess.

“How are we doing?” Lena asked and began to unwrap and plough into her lunch.

“If this is considered lunch then you’re running ten minutes ahead of schedule.”

“Ahead? That’s got to be a new record for us,” said Lena between mouthfuls.

“You’d think so, but our over-under time is still pretty abysmal,” said Jess.

Lena pulled up a chair to rest her feet and enjoy her lunch for the next three minutes at least. Jess actually paused in her calculations and endless typing to look at the President sitting in her chair like a kid at the principal’s office.

“Cat wanted me to remind you about a meeting in the mural room.”

Lena stood up and dusted off the nonexistent crumbs from her navy blue dress. Six meetings before lunch and only about a million more to go; and if she was going to drop in unannounced on the Test Ban Treaty, she needed to have her game face on.

**-           -           -**

“So Snapper was okay with this?” Kara asked from behind Rhea. They were walking through the west wing towards the mural room to sit in on a bipartisan meeting for deep background on a new Test Ban Treaty.

“He thinks it’s a great idea.” Rhea said sarcastically, “Why not have the puppy sit in on a very important meeting, oh, and have her meet Cat Grant while we’re at it?”

“I’m meeting the Cat Grant?” All color drained from her face and she could’ve sworn her heart missed a beat or two.

“Yes, Kara, do you know many other Cat Grants?”

“Well, no, but Cat is the Chief of Staff. And you’ve been a reporter here forever, but I’m barely a reporter as it is—

“Truer words have never been spoken.”

“It’s just that…” Kara paused to maneuver around some interns loitering in the hallway, “well, I haven’t really written anything.”

“No shit, sweetheart.” Just as they rounded the final corner, Rhea called out, “Cat!”

Cat Grant, the little general as the press corps called her, walked over, but was clearly not in a mood to be trifled with. Kara remembered her pep talk from this morning and took a calming breath. She just had to make a good impression and not mess anything up…or fall down. Yeah, falling down was definitely the most likely scenario.

“I am not a pet, nor will I be summoned like one.”

“You can’t have your staff drop their notes on our desks at 9:15 and expect us to have reasonable questions ready for Maggie’s brief at 9:30.”

“But I do make up for it with perks like this special meeting from the depths of hell,” said Cat. “Who is this?”

“This is Kara Danvers; I believe you know her work on the blog sites. She’s scared of meeting you, so be nice.”

Why, oh why, did Rhea have to bring up the blog sites? Before Kara had the chance of speaking up for herself or even softening that particular blow, Cat was already off to the races.

“You’re the silly little girl who wrote those columns.” Kara nodded, unable to find her voice. “You’re an idiot who doesn’t use facts.”

“Now wait a minute, Cat,” Rhea broke in. In that moment Kara couldn’t believe what she had heard. Was Rhea actually defending her?

“She’s not an idiot,” she continued, “The stories had facts, they were just horribly mashed together—nothing that a college level writing class couldn’t fix, so,” she took a deep breath like she was trying to force the words out by sheer force of will, “as much as it pains me to say it, let’s speak of her with some respect. At least to her face.”

Kara wasn’t sure if she should be happy that Rhea had defended her or upset that the woman stripped her of a hard-earned college education. Perhaps a good first impression wasn’t a total loss.

“I believe,” Cat said, “as long as Miss Danvers is intolerant toward President Luthor and her family, the government, White House staffers, and a correct interpretation of facts in general, I shall remain intolerant towards her.”

“Good enough for me.”

Yeah, that good first impression was surely blown to bits.

The mural room was surprisingly dark compared to the halls and press briefing room, but Kara supposed it was fitting considering this was where most of the bipartisan bills were discussed. There were some couches set opposite one another in the center of the room, but Rhea led her to a back desk so they would be mostly out of sight.

The active participants walked in and Kara began to take rather detailed notes. She needed something to write about when this week of window dressing was over and she wasn’t leaving empty handed. Cat Grant took the only armchair that served as middle ground between the two parties. Clearly she was only there to mediate the discussion and try to keep tempers from firing.

Two deputy chiefs of staff from congress came in next, Kara heard Isaac and Jason, but it was clear that Isaac was going to be doing most of the talking. Poor Jason was there to keep the numbers high and cause strife if nothing else. The next participant shocked her so entirely that she dropped her notebook and pen on the floor completely ruining Rhea’s attempt at discretion.

Clark Kent, the Senator of California, walked into the Mural room like he owned the place and nodded to Kara with a small smile as he took is seat on the couch opposite Isaac and Jason. He had always been larger than life to Kara, but even at 50 he looked ready to take the field as the NCU’s star linebacker.

After the first thirty minutes, Kara gave up trying to take any notes at all. An hour into the meeting she started doodling in her notepad simply to stay awake. Clark didn’t seem to understand tat he was getting nowhere fast, but he kept pushing his luck.

“This is my fifth—”

“Senator, the answer will always be no,” said Jason.

“This is my fifth meeting in a row and it’s my last before I have to go back to California and tell them why Washington isn’t moving on this. Now what’s it going to take for your boss to loosen his grip?”

“You wasted a trip, Senator Kent.” Said Jason as he stood to leave the meeting.

“I’ve wasted them before,” said Clark as he watched the two men leave, “I’m sure I’ll waste more of them in the future.”

He took his time packing up the paperwork he brought to attempt to sway their minds and threw his jacket back on. Kara always thought he looked very…All-American in his deep blue suit and trademark red tie. She was never very close with him in her early years, but they had almost cut all ties to each other after her parents died.

“Kara I was surprised to see you here.”

Kara was rocked out of her thoughts by Clark’s voice.

“Hey, Clark. Uh, long time, no see.” She was so proud of herself for managing a smile.

“I’ll say. What are you doing here? Weren’t you a fairly vocal opponent of the President before she got elected?”

Kara knew this was going to end in a train wreck. While she herself wasn’t the biggest fan of the Luthor’s, she couldn’t hold a candle to Clark’s disdain for the President and her brother. “Um…yup. Yes, that was me all right.”

It was around this time that Rhea and Cat wrapped up their own conversation and turned their attention to the other conversation in the room.

“I guess even the brightest of stars can be corrupted by the lure of power. How’s it feel being on the Luthor family payroll?”

Kara took a deep breath and reminded herself why she never talked to Clark unless absolutely necessary, or when Eliza threatened to withhold dessert at thanksgiving dinner until she called her cousin to wish him a happy holidays. Not that she really minded in those instances because she always got double helpings for gritting her teeth and getting through the phone call.

“Actually,” she said, “it’s President Luthor, and I’m on the Daily Planet’s payroll.”

“Yeah, okay.” He made to leave, but Kara decided to pull a card from his playbook and push her luck. It was her day after all and she had promised to do something bold this morning on her way to the office.

“And another thing. I think you don’t really care about the Test Ban Treaty, but I only say this because Eliza hasn’t mentioned anything about it in your numerous TV ads. I think you just want to beat the White House.”

Clark was slower to turn around and face her than Kara would’ve liked, but she had a point to make and a mentor to prove wrong so she was going for it, darn it!

“Kara, we should leave the Senator alone now and get back—” Rhea said.

“You think the Test Ban Treaty is something we should let die?” He asked and took a few steps towards her.

Kara almost lost her resolve staring at the larger than life frame of her cousin, but she regrouped.

“I’m saying that President Luthor, despite her many flaws, has actually passed more aggressive nuclear test bans than you’ve ever supported. Where the hell do you think those 150 countries got the language for their bills from?”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to you defend that monster!” He exclaimed.

Rhea stepped up to try and end the budding confrontation before Cat decided to rescind their press credentials. “Sir, Ms. Danvers has been thrown into the deep end here on her first week at the White House—”

“I’m not defending her!” cried Kara, “Well, kinda, but not her personally.”

It was around this time that Cat and Rhea lost all blood flow to their faces and literally took a step back from Kara. Maybe she went too far by shouting at an honest-to-god senator in the White House no less, but at the end of the day he was still the man who abandoned her just to save his precious political career.

Little did Kara know that the reason Cat and Rhea were freaking out was because the President herself had just walked silently into the room the open door behind the young reporter.

“I think she should’ve been impeached after her first year and I cannot stand that she let my sister be led like a lamb to the slaughter—and then Alex does nothing but defend her? She should’ve been out and the house censure was nothing but a slap on the wrist. She’s doing moderately acceptable work now, but it’s only a matter of time before someone like you pushes her over the edge and she turns into the power hungry CEO or trigger happy Commander like the rest of them!”

Lena chose that moment to make her presence known.

“Cat, I think we’re going to have to reschedule that covert beheading in the rose garden tonight. They clearly know too much already.”


	5. Test Ban Backtracking

“Good morning, Madam President,” said Cat, “How’s your morning been thus far?”

“Couldn’t be better.” Lena said.

Kara turned in the direction of the President, but remained frozen and incapable of rational coherent thought. Mortified. That was the one word that came to Kara’s mind. If she were capable of speech she’d probably be praying for something very heavy to fall from the sky or a black hole in the ground to swallow her right then and there.

“I apologize for the interruption,” Lena continued all smiles, “but Ms. Grant asked me to stop by and say hello. I guess I missed the boring policy portion of the meeting, huh?”

Lena looked to Kara at the end of her little introduction clearly indicating that she needed to say something, but Kara was finding it difficult to breathe, let alone speak.

“Madam President, I-I’m so sorry…for my outburst, and to a Senator, and those things I said. I-I don’t know what to say… I’m speechless.”

“All evidence to the contrary.” Lena said with a sly smile and her signature raised brow.

Rhea was talking and trying to diffuse the situation, but Kara was barely hearing her. She just gaped like a fish out of water at the President. She suddenly understood why so many people were infatuated with her; the photos didn’t do justice to those piercing green eyes and she had an aura about her that could make Clark look like a schoolboy. It was amazing how even Cat Grant looked smaller by comparison.

“Madam President,” said Rhea, “we haven’t met. I’m Rhea Gand, I work in the press corps. I hope this episode in no way—”

“I’ve heard many good things from Cat about you, Ms. Gand,” Lena said while reaching out a hand, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Ma’am.”

“I head you turned us down on the job offer.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Rhea averted her gaze and looked to Cat for support. “I felt that it required a more nuanced touch that I am not qualified to provide. I merely report the facts, Ma’am, there’s no chance for embellishment where my writing is concerned.”

“Well, I hope you’ll stick with us to the bitter end anyway, Ms. Gand.” Lena turned her undivided attention back to Kara briefly before looking to Clark with a somewhat less than welcoming look in her eye.

“And how can I be of assistance today, Senator Kent?” she asked.

“The Test Ban Treaty, Ma’am. Bishop spent four years of his life on this and I believe he could sway a great many hearts and minds in the Senate.”

“He spent longer than that,” Cat chimed in, “and it burned him in the end. He lost his seat in congress.”

“Yes, he lost his seat to a militant fear-mongering elitist of a woman.”

“Those words sound awfully familiar, Mr. Kent,” Lena said, “perhaps you should invest in a thesaurus and return with something new to say. I set up this meeting specifically because you asked, now what’s your pitch?”

“This treaty isn’t bad and you know that. It can happen. Not only that, but Bishop can stick it to every North Carolina voter who put him out of a job and take Michelle’s knees out before she has a chance to put her pencils in the jar.”

“I don’t think I can help you, Mr. Kent.” Lena said with a sigh. “In the end it’s Bishop’s call. While I’d love for this treaty to be passed, it’s not my decision to make.”

“With all due respect, you could tell your people to back off, Madam President.”

“I could, but they were elected just like you and I.” Lena was clearly done with this conversation. “Safe travels, Mr. Kent.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

And with that Kent was out of the door in the most polite way someone could storm out of a room after being dismissed by the leader of the free world. Kara turned to look back at the President only to find herself under the careful gaze of those green gems.

“Cat,” the President asked without taking her eyes off of her, “is this the puppy you were telling me about?”

“Wait, what?” That certainly snapped Kara out of any spell she may—or may not have been under. This is the real world, after all and Kara was definitely not going to be distracted again.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Cat answered.

“I am no a puppy.” Kara said to no one in particular. Maybe if she just avoided her eyes?

“All right,” Lena said leaning in to meet Kara’s blank gaze, “Who are you then?”

“K-Kara.” She managed to say. “Kara Danvers.”

“Well, Kara, do you have a free moment?”

“Yes?”

Lena turned towards the door with a tilt of her head for Kara to follow and they walked into the hallway and began their walk to lord knows where. They had been walking in silence for two turns before Kara realized they were suddenly in the chief of staff’s office—Cat’s office.

“I thought we might have a word in private.” Lena finally said. “Someplace that’s a little less intimidating.”

“And you choose the chief of staff’s office?”

“It was this or the oval.”

Kara stood there uncomfortably clutching her notepad and fiddling her pen, just waiting for the President to say something—to shout, throw her out of the building, hand her over to the secret service, anything at all, really.

“Madam President…” she had to break the silence.

“Is it okay if I call you Kara?”

“Of course, Ma’am—”

“Cat mentioned you were new to the White House,” Lena sat against the edge of Cat’s desk. “How are you liking it?”

“It was going fine until about ten minutes ago.” Kara took a deep breath and decided to just get this over with and hope to any and all gods out there that she would be spared a gruesome public reprimand. “Madam President, what you heard in there was nothing more than vanity run amok. I was trying to show the Senator that not everyone will fall into line and, honestly, I was showing off to a colleague who doesn’t think much of me.”

Lena’s face hadn’t changed through her entire speech. It was as if she was trying to figure Kara out and Kara definitely didn’t welcome the attention.

“It would be a real shame for you to punish the Daily Plant on account of my actions today. I’m deeply sorry for saying those things at the White House, Ma’am. It was entirely unprofessional.”

“Hold on a moment,” Lena stood back up to her full height to look Kara in the eye, “are you under the impressions that I’m mad at you?”

Kara nodded and looked down at her scuffed shoes.

“Seldom does a day go by that I’m not labeled as a hypocrite, party traitor, bitch, horrible mother, or—my personal favorite—tyrant.”

“With all due respect, Ma’am, I doubt many people say those things about you at the White House.”

Lena chuckled and moved to sit at Cat’s desk. “I’ll grant you that, Kara. The White House does have the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world.”

Kara was already fairly confused and off balance, but she had no idea why the President was going through Cat’s drawers like she was searching for something.

“Yes, Ma’am, I learned that the hard way.”

Lena apparently found what she was looking for because she emerged from under the desk with a quick ‘ah ha!’ and walked back to Kara.

Chocolate kisses. Kara had just witnessed the most powerful woman in the world raid her colleagues secret candy stash. All right, Danvers, time to get back on a level playing field.

“Ma’am, I may be a little intimidated by my surroundings, and, yes, I might've gotten off to the worst possible start, but I truly meant what I said back there. I’m sure you know that I was the reporter who ran the articles about Lex and your blatant lies to the American public, but I’m here for my job and it’s a job I’d like to do well.”

“How do you know Clark so well?”

“Excuse me?”

“Senator Clark Kent. You seem to know him well enough,” Lena mused, “Although, to be fair, you had never met me before you went off like that.”

“He’s my biological cousin.”

“That’s rather specific.” Lena said with a tilt of her head.

“I only specify, Ma’am, because I was adopted by the Danvers when I was thirteen. I barely knew him when I was younger and now we rarely speak.”

“Differences of opinion?”

“You could say that.” Kara said and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “If you don’t mind me asking, why am I here?”

“Well, I’d assume if you’re that Kara Danvers your boss sent you here to try and intimidate us.”

“That’s correct, but I meant why am I here, in this room.”

“Oh,” Lena swallowed her most recent chocolate kiss, “I just wanted to talk more and you seemed incapable of speech in the Mural room. Well, that and I wanted some chocolate.”

“I see.”

Kara looked at the President and her relaxed posture, leaning back against the desk like they were colleagues chatting on a company smoke break. She wasn’t nearly as intimidating now as she had been in front of an audience. She could see the faint coloring of dark circles under her eyes where her makeup had rubbed off during the day and her dark hair was slowly spilling out of its tightly wound bun. She didn’t look like the commander in chief that the general public saw at the rallies and the press conferences; she seemed…human.

“Shall I go then?”

“Sure thing.” Lena said and plopped another kiss in her mouth. Kara turned towards the nearest door, but was stopped by a soft hand on her arm. “Not that door.”

“What?”

“That’s the oval office, so if you go out through that door you might be tackled by Richard.”

"Richard?"

"The Secret Service agent assigned to the Oval Office today."

“Oh, okay.” She tried to make her feet move, she really did, but all Kara could think about was Lena’s reassuring smile and soft hands guiding her towards the proper exit. Somehow she found herself standing in the hallway again and when she turned back all she saw was the closing of a door as the President disappeared into the Oval office.


	6. Call The Girl

That night the President and Maggie were playing chess after putting Conner to bed. Maggie might not have been the best at chess, but she tried to learn for Lena who needed a distraction when talking about anything remotely related to feelings of the heart. And Maggie had the added advantage of sharing Lena’s tastes in many aspects.

“The Old Guard know we’re making a move on gun control—I’m sorry, ‘crime control.’” Maggie said.

“Don’t let Winn hear you say gun control,” Lena joked, “he’s likely to lose his mind and breakdown the latest polling data for you.”

“God, do I know it. I had Linda tape a flashcard to the podium the reads ‘crime control’ in sharpie.”

“Should I think about calling a meeting with them?”

“The Old Guard?” Maggie clarified. “Nah, I’d let Lex take a pass at them first.”

“Fine. Check.” Lena took a break from staring at the board to drink her wine. Maggie took her time moving her king out of the line of fire before speaking again.

“Also, the Daily Planet called.”

“Yeah?” Lena made to move her queen.

“They wanted to apologize one more time for Kara’s outburst.”

At the mention of Kara Danvers’ name Lena dropped her queen and knocked over at least three other pieces before managing to get herself back under control.

“Just a hair too excited about that news, Madam President?” Maggie had no qualms about poking fun at Lena’s weakness for smart and pugnacious women.

“Did she say anything about me?”

“Well, it was her boss who called. Suitor? Supper…? Something odd like that. What happened that required multiple apologies from the press?” Maggie asked with a knowing look in her eye. It certainly wasn’t helping the President’s case for discretion when she refused to look in Maggie’s general direction.

“Nothing happened,” Lena tried, but she soon continued her explanation when Maggie let out a snort of laughter. “Okay, she sort of went off on Senator Kent, but in doing so she also said a lot of negative things about me. Apparently they’re distantly related so it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Okay, and…?”

“And what?” Lena said. “We had a nice chat together. I had some chocolate, she didn’t back down from what she said and then she left.”

Both Lena and Maggie gave up trying to finish their game of chess and instead took a moment to subtly stare down the other over the rims of their wine glasses.

“Look,” Maggie started, setting down her glass and resting her elbows on her knees, “I understand that talking about feelings isn’t your strong suit, and I’ll go along with the stupid chess game, but you’ve got to tell me something.”

Lena took a deep breath and sat up straight again. “Tell me this: hypothetically, what would happen if I called Kara and asked her to be my date for the State Dinner Friday night?”

“Jesus. Lena, are you shitting me right now?”

“Never mind,” Lena said and she picked up a lost pawn to roll around in her hand.

“No, hear me out. I think maybe you should ask her, but I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into.” Maggie reached a hand out to grasp Lena’s. “It is an election year, much to James’ chagrin, so the press will be all over this, but maybe you should do it anyway.”

“It was a stupid suggestion, Maggie, please forget it.” Lena’s words seemed sincere, but Maggie could tell that her heart wasn’t in it when her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Wilson was widowed during his first term,” Maggie said, “He met a woman, courted her, dated her, married her, and also managed to form a League of Nations.”

“The League of Nations was toothless and non-binding.”

“You’re missing the bigger picture, Lena.”

“How big of a hit would we take?”

“Lena—”

“How big?” Lena asked.

“I don’t know, maybe five points?”

“It could be more.” Lena whispered.

“You want me to get Winn to run some numbers for you?” Maggie’s voice was becoming high pitched and annoyed. “Lena, we drop five points when the Giant’s lose to the Patriots. I don’t want you asking the American public for permission like you’re asking to stay out an hour past curfew. This is none of their business.”

“You know as well as I do that the American people have a funny way of deciding what is and is not their business.”

“Lena, look at me.” Maggie said in a quiet voice. “Do you like her?”

“Yes,” she said after a moment’s pause.

“Then give her a call.”

-           -           -

Across the capital, in a modest apartment above a mom-and-pop style pizzeria, Alex and Kara were burning the midnight oil unpacking boxes. When Kara had accepted her promotion to move away from National City the sisters agreed that they would share Alex’s apartment, and now they were spending every night unpacking and rearranging the furniture to try and fit everything in the tiny two-bedroom apartment. The exposed brickwork and industrial pipes created quite the aesthetic, but coming from the south of Hollywood to, well… this was quite the adjustment for Kara.

One good thing about the place was the heating. Between the pizzeria’s wood-fire oven and the old steam pipes, their apartment was never less than eighty degrees, not that it bothered the California natives. And they didn’t have to worry about a draft from the windows since every single one faced a brick wall maybe an arm’s length away.

The biggest perk absolutely had to be the free pizza that always managed to make its way to their doorstep. When the DiNublia family realized just how much pizza Kara could put away they started leaving an unclaimed pie or two by the girls’ front door on their way upstairs for the night.

After her terrible day, Kara was beyond happy to see Alex already opening a bottle of wine as soon as she walked in the door. A few hours of ranting, unpacking, two pizzas, and bottle of white wine later and the girls were back to their new normal.

“Hey, Alex,” Kara called out from her room, “Do you know how to work caller ID?”

“How can you not know how to work a telephone?” She heard from the living room.

“I’ve been paying attention to other things recently.”

“Why the hell do you need a landline anyway?”

“I just like the feel of it, okay?”

“But it’s just plain useless,” Alex said as she dropped a box of linens on the couch. “You give everyone your cell number anyway.”

Kara looked away from her sister and continued setting up her books on the shelf.

“I’ve never had a landline before.” She said in a small voice.

That certainly got Alex’s attention. It always seemed to be the small things, the things that people didn’t even bother to think about that reminded Kara she was adopted. Learning to ride a bike, first day of school shopping, needing glasses, and apparently having a ‘family’ number for someone to call.

“Well, pay attention now because I’m sure your boss is going to call to ream you out for yelling at POTUS today.”

“Alex!” She cried in embarrassment.

“Is it true you almost walked into the oval?”

“That was an accident,” Kara insisted as she entered the living room, “you know that building is covered in rooms and doors that all look the same to me.”

“Richard is going to be laughing about this for a week.” Alex chuckled.

“Nooo,” she groaned, “Working with your older sister is officially unfair.”

“Life’s tough, buttercup,” Alex crumpled her napkin and tossed it at Kara, “Time to knuckle up!”

“I’m going to my room so I can throw a book at your head.”

“Hmm,” Alex mused, “make sure it’s a big one, would you?”

Kara resumed arranging her library, but her thoughts kept coming back to the President and their odd little meeting, well, the one after she put her foot in her mouth. She seemed so normal and relaxed, completely opposite of the ice queen who cut her cousin down to size in a way Kara never could. Oh god, she totally blew any chances of playing in their league when she opened her big fat mouth. Reason number 672 why she should never try to be more like Clark.

“She must think I’m a lightweight reporter without any class at all.”

“If anything she probably thinks you’re a heavyweight reported with nerves of steel.” Alex came over to lean against the doorway to Kara’s room. “It took a lot of spunk to stand up to Clark from what I heard around the water cooler.”

“Clark I can handle, but the President is just scary.”

“Yeah, that can take some getting used to.” Alex mused with a smirk.

“Not that I’d ever need to get used to it. I’ll be somewhere else writing about lost dogs next week.”

Kara slumped into her desk chair and laid her head on her arms in defeat. She never even wanted all that fame and recognition when she published those online articles. The only purpose was to call attention to the Luthor’s rise to absolute power and their resemblance to the last time a madman controlled the country. And now here she was, being dragged to the White House, calling out her cousin for leaving her, and watching the President eat chocolate kisses.

A shrill ringing broke into her thoughts. The phone—someone was calling her!

“Wait,” Alex said as Kara went to pick up the receiver, “press the grey button and the number will appear on the screen. That’s your caller ID.”

Kara did as she was told, but immediately froze when she saw the number, which, to her eternal credit, wasn’t actually a number at all.

“Who is it?” Alex asked.

“The White House.”

“How in the world do have their number memorized already?”

“It’s not a number, Alex” She held up the phone so her sister could read words scrolling across the screen:

‘White House: Oval Office (Secure Line)’

“Don’t just stand there,” Alex pushed, “Answer it!”

“Um…h-hello?” Kara asked the phone.

“Kara?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“I can see I’ve made quite the impression if you don’t even remember the sound of my voice.” The woman half-joked. It was like she was trying to be bigger than she felt while also seeming down to earth—wait.

“Madam President?!”

“So you do remember.” She said followed by a soft laugh, if Kara didn’t know better she would’ve sworn she heard a sigh of relief. “I was wondering, um… are you doing anything Friday?”

“I’m planning on going to sleep and waking up when there’s a new president.”

“…Oh” She crushed her. Kara Danvers, featherweight blogger, just killed the most popular president in the last fifty years.

“No! I just meant that, you know. It was a joke is all! I still feel terrible for this afternoon. When I said—I meant it to be… you know what? I’m just going to move to another country so I can stop embarrassing myself.”

There was nothing but soft laughter coming through the phone. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a complete loss, after all. Making the President laugh was definitely a good thing, right?

Kara glanced around the room to see Alex’s eyes go wide just before she slithered out of the room. Apparently she had heard the laughter too, but maybe she was getting out of dodge before things got ugly.

“I’m impressed that you were able to get my number,” Kara said, “I technically don’t have a phone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I moved in with my sister last weekend and we had plugged the phone in only two hours ago. I don’t even know the number yet.”

“If it makes you feel better I don’t know your number either. I asked my secretary to get you on the phone and 20 minutes later here we are.”

“That’s…I’m going to try and not be terrified by that, Ma’am.”

“Good luck, it scares the hell out of me.” Now it was Kara’s turn to laugh.

“But, um, I should stop stalling,” she continued. “As I’m sure you know, Japan’s Prime Minister is visiting Friday and we’re hosting a state dinner… I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go… with me—and you’re under no obligation at all—but I thought it might be fun, and uh… there it is. That’s why I called you.”

Kara experienced absolute paralysis for the second time that day and this time she was certain her heart had ceased beating. The President thought it might be…fun? This was the woman who had stood there and listened to Kara divest her of all authority and good will not twelve hours earlier.

“Kara, the joint chiefs don’t take this long to make a decision—”

“What’s this about, Madam President?” Her bravado from this afternoon had returned and Kara was honestly surprised by the authoritative tone in her voice.

There was a breathy laugh on the other end of the line before the President finally responded. “This is just a dinner. Normally we pick a White House staffer out of a hat so I’m not paraded around as the lonely single mother. Samantha was supposed to be my date on Friday, but she fell ill.”

“So this really is just dinner?”

“Yes, just dinner.”

“Madam President, I can’t believe I managed to do this twice in one day. I’m so sorry.”

There was a light chuckle through the line. “You needn’t apologize for either one, but I still haven’t gotten an official answer on my dinner invitation for Friday night.”

“I’d be honored, Ma’am. I’m just a little…uh, what do I do? I-I mean, what happens now?”

“I’m going to have my personal aide, Mike Mo’Neil, give you a call sometime this week. He’ll make sure you have every questioned answered before Friday. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Kara let out a huge sigh of relief she didn’t even know she had been holding.

“Thank you, Madam President.”

She hung up the phone and returned to the living room where her sister was sorting through a box of kitchen utensils. Kara picked up her own box of glasses and started stacking them on the tiny island, but her hands were still shaking so much that she nearly knocked them over. She grabbed a towel to dust them off and knocked over the flower vase. In righting the flower vase, she knocked over a bottle of wine.

“You’re awfully jumpy after that call,” Alex smirked, “Got a hot date or something?”

Kara turned to her sister with wide eyes and sent two glasses flying off the island with her spasm. Yeah, Alex knew what a White House invite felt like first hand.


	7. Boy's Night In

It was a beautiful April night, one of those rare evenings that hints at the summer to come. The White House was awash in a brilliant glow and the flash from TV and media cameras gave it a shimmering effect. The guests looked absolutely stunning in their black-tie suits and formal gowns, but President Lena Luthor was not greeting her guests at the doors, nor was she eagerly awaiting their presence in the dining room.

Lena was standing in front of four grown adult men and giving them the deadliest stare she could maintain while Conner was squealing with laughter from the couch.

A girl’s night out meant a boy’s night in and Conner had handpicked his troops and their duties for their evening of frivolity and messiness. As such, the men stood before Lena as she paced in front of them like a Sargent before unruly troops. When Conner was younger it was truly a serious business, but now it had simply become tradition—and more of a game.

“Bedtime is exactly nine o’clock,” Lena said, making sure to look Mike in the eye, “I understand this rule was a bent, if not completely broken last time?”

Conner let out another squeal of laughter. “Mommy, nooooo!”

Mike leaned around the President and gave Conner a wink while signaling the boy to be quiet as a mouse. Lena turned back to Mike and raised her signature brow.

“Ma’am,” he said, back straight and staring into the middle ground to continue the charade. “We wanted to make sure Conner had a chance to see your speech. He took a mandatory nap earlier in the day and was back to bed after the first ten minutes.”

Lena turned back to Conner who had both hands over his mouth to prevent any more laughter from spilling out.

“My speech lasted half an hour.” She told her son.

“You were boring.” The boy managed to get out between giggles.

“Well,” Lena said to the group, “I guess I should be thankful you weren’t shooting nerf darts at my face on the screen.”

It was a subtle glance, no more than a fraction of a second, but Lena happened to catch the movement as everyone looked to Winn who had turned a violent shade of pink.

“Oh, my god, you did not!” Lena’s character broke completely and she was already smiling like a Cheshire cat at the boys and their creative antics. Conner lost his composure and rolled onto his back to laugh so much he cried. While Lena looked shocked and appalled, the boys were clearly remembering whatever had happened at the last boy’s night because no one could keep a straight face anymore.

“I don’t even want to know anymore,” Lena said being the first to regain he composure, “You all are terrible.”

“Absolutely, Ma’am.” James joked.

“Alright, get out so I can say goodnight to my son.”

“Popcorn, Winn!” Conner yelled from the couch.

“Yes, sir!” Winn responded as he left the room. You wouldn’t think that three adult men would be looking forward to babysitting little Conner so much, but they had been causing trouble in the West Wing all day with their planning and scheming for tonight.

Lena sat down on the couch and Conner, already bathed and in his pajamas, simply laid back to rest his head in her lap.

“Make sure you don’t eat too much, okay?” She begged him. “Last time you couldn’t get to sleep because you were so sick.”

“Okay, I’ll try.” Lena brought a hand up to play with his thick black hair. “Are you nervosa?”

“Am I nervous?” She asked. Conner nodded. “A little.”

“Why is your dinner scary?” He asked and cocked his head to the side like a puppy.

“Nervous can also mean I’m excited about the dinner.”

“Okay. So why are you nervous?” Damn her son and his advanced comprehension rate. Misdirection should work at least sixty percent of the time, not ten.

“I have a date. Like in the movies.”

“A real one?”

“Yes.” Lena paused for a moment as Conner started playing with a loose thread on his stuffed Hulk. “Conner…is that okay with you? That I have a real date tonight?”

“Yeah?” Conner looked at her like she was the ignorant child in this conversation. “I think it’s cool.”

“How do you mean?”

“Jason’s dad has a girlfriend and now they’re going on a lot of family trips and stuff. If you have a girlfriend that we can do that too, right?”

“Sweetie, we can do that with just us you know?” Lena chuckled a little at her son’s logic.

“Yeah, I guess…but it could be fun.” Conner sat up and turned to face his mother like he was struggling to put his thoughts together in a way that would make sense to an adult—as if it were the adults that just didn’t understand simple things like this. “Jason comes to school with better lunches now. And he has notes in his lunch just like me. And at recess, he said that his dad is acting funny, but in a good way—like he got up really early one morning to make a giant breakfast. And last week they all made pizza together and flour got everywhere, but no one was mad and stuff.”

“Do you wish we did more stuff like that? Just you and me?” Lena asked trying to figure out what it was her son was trying to tell her. Maybe she needed to take some more time in the mornings and evenings to be with him?

“We do stuff like that all the time. It just seems different—not better, just different…” He sort of petered off towards the end like he lost his own train of thought. “Did I make you sad?”

“No, but I want to make sure you’re not sad,” Lena said, “You would tell me if you were sad, right?”

Conner nodded his head vigorously. “Mommy, I like our big family. I don’t think Jason’s family is better than ours it’s just different.”

“Okay.” Lena poked his potbelly and laughed when he looked truly offended. Then the tickle war began and that’s how the boys found them: rolling around on the floor laughing their heads off.

“It’s time to get ready, Madam President.” Mike said before biting down on a hotdog.

“Hotdogs!” Conner yelled and took off like a madman for the kitchen.

“Thank you, Mike.” Lena said.

“It’s nothing at all, Ma’am.”

Lena got on her feet and headed to her bedroom door.

“Complement her earrings,” he said.

“What?”

“Your date. Complement her shoes or earrings or something. I hear girls like that sort of thing.” Mike said before disappearing into the loud and chaotic kitchen.


	8. Girl's Night Out

Kara Danvers walked through the grand entrance of the White House while doing her best not to stare at the amazing pieces of art adorning the walls, or the guests in their exquisite formal wear for that manner. While her sister was able to change into her formal tuxedo without leaving the office, Kara had to arrive by herself and face the gauntlet of media reporters and White House guests wondering who she was and why she was here.

Kara was just about to bolt and call the whole thing off for a quiet night at home with her pals Ben and Jerry when a petite woman in a conservative formal dress came up to her.

“Ms. Danvers…?”

“Yes,” she responded.

“Hi, I’m Jess,” said the woman as they shook hands, “I’m the President’s secretary. She asked me to come get you for a light reception in the residences.”

“Oh, that sounds great.” At least she would know her sister and Maggie. Two people out of a room full of strangers staring at her wasn’t that bad.

The formal dining room upstairs was filled with little groups of close friends milling about with glasses of various spirits. Kara noticed a small collection of wait staff wandering back and forth with trays of finger food and drinks. She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding when Maggie walked straight over to her—finally another friendly face.

“Maggie!” She exclaimed.

“Hey, Kara,” Maggie replied, “You look lovely in that color. You should wear blue more often.”

“Thank you. I have no idea what I’m doing here.”

“Relax, little Danvers, you’re here for dinner and to have a good time. I promise.”

“All right.” Kara still seemed skeptical. “Have you seen Alex?”

“I think she went to get us some drinks.”

At that moment Lena walked up to the group from Kara’s blind spot, but before she had a chance to enter her panic mode, she felt a reassuring hand on her arm just as before.

“Kara Danvers,” she said, “I’m Lena Luthor. We met at the White House?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I remember,” said Kara as she readjusted her glasses in embarrassment. The President looked absolutely stunning in a long backless red dress. If Kara didn’t know better she’d think Mike picked the President’s dress to match her own.

“I’m sorry, Kara, but that was hands down my favorite part of the week.” Lena said.

“Dear god,” Maggie said in exasperation, “If only we could get her to shut up about it.” When Kara’s face turned a slight pink she continued, “No, really. Thank you for coming tonight so I wouldn’t have to listen to the story for a twelfth time.”

Kara finally saw her sister walking over to them and she stood there willing Alex to move faster and end her suffering.

“Damn, Danvers,” Maggie said with a whistle as she took in Alex’s custom tailored tuxedo and high heels.

“Wow,” Lena said with wide eyes, “you’re really rocking that suit, Alex.”

Kara managed to catch her sister’s eye, but apparently their telepathy was way off that night because Alex did nothing to diffuse the tension in the air at all. Instead she looked Kara dead in the eye before turning to the President to say:

“Yeah, you wanna make out with me right now, don’t you?”

“Well, when don’t I?” Lena responded with a smirk.

The whole group had a bit of a laugh while Kara was trying to figure out what in the world as going on and why her sister would betray her like that. That look was supposed to be ‘get me out of this mess’ not ‘quick, make it even more awkward!’

“Hey,” Maggie said with false bravado, “get your own Danvers. This one’s mine.” Alex planted a soft kiss to her girlfriend’s forehead.

“I’m trying.” Lena mumbled to her friend who promptly snorted into her drink. Alex made sure to catch Kara’s eye after that comment and tilt her head slightly towards the President. What in the world was she—oh. Oh.

This was a date—a real, honest to goodness date. She was on a date with the President of the United States. The same President she publically placed on trial in a silly blog post. The woman she had just insulted a few days before. Oh god, what was she thinking?! She can’t go on a date with the Lena Luthor! This woman was way out of her league on so many different levels. And how did she even end up here? One moment she was standing in the Mural room calling her a mockery of a leader and suddenly she’s standing beside Lena as her date for the evening? She couldn’t breathe. Yeah, she was definitely going to pass out or have a panic attack right in the middle of the White House. Or maybe she was already panicking? Is there any way to tell if you’re in the middle of a panic attack? There’s got to be a way to tell, right?

“Kara?” She was brought back to the room by Lena’s voice and worried green eyes scanning her face. “Do you need some water or something?”

Kara looked back at the President, really looked at her for the first time since that moment in the Chief of Staff’s office. Lena was just as nervous as she was, but she did a better job of masking it. Must be from years of practice as a public icon. Although her hand on Kara’s arm was meant to reassure her, Kara could feel the small tremors caused by Lena’s shaking hands.

Her hair wasn’t in its usual tight bun, but rather in a simple ponytail that allowed her hair to cascade down to her shoulder blades. The more she looked, the more Kara saw how Lena had removed the more opulent aspects from her outfit to better match whatever Kara showed up in. She didn’t wear jewelry and Lena wore only a necklace. She wore a simple blue dress with a plunging V-neck; Len wore a simple red dress without a back. She wore flats and Lena wore low heels. Kara wasn’t a complete fool, she knew the president had a fully-stocked closet the size of her modest apartment, but she still went out of her way to make sure Kara didn’t feel ostracized by the grandeur surrounding her.

“I’m fine,” Kara responded, “I think it’s just the general splendor of the room.”

Lena smiled at her, “I forget that we’re all used to it by now. Would you like to sit down for a minute?”

“No, thank you, I’ll be okay. Just needed a moment to take it all in.,” she said looking into those green eyes again, “I’m sorry if I missed most of the conversation.”

“You didn’t miss anything important,” Lena replied.

“Madam President,” Jess interrupted, “the receiving line is in place.”

“It sounds like our table’s ready, everyone.” Lena announced to their little group.

Lena turned to head back down the stairs and paused to offer her arm to Kara who glanced at her sister’s shit-eating grin only once before she let herself be led away by her date.


	9. A 'Real' Date

While most of the guests were led straight to the East Room from the reception in the residences, President Lena led Kara and their small group down a small staircase to a long formal hallway so she could make a grand entrance with Prime Minister Himura and his wife for the press. Alex and the others gave Lena and Kara a wide berth so the two could have some privacy before the gauntlet started.

“Once we get to the end of the hallway I have to do a thing,” Lena began, “Maggie and Alex will escort you—”

“Mike walked me through it, Ma’am.” Kara stole a glance at Lena before asking, “Do you do this often?”

“State dinners? They’re a bit rare, but—”

“No, I meant… do you go out on—do you often—”

Lena chuckled and turned to face Kara. “Do I date a lot?”

“Yeah,” Kara smiled herself, “Sorry for the blunt delivery.”

“Not really. This is my first date in quite some time,” Lena flushed bright pink at her answer, “ How about you?”

“Lately, I seem to be going on a lot of first dates.” Now it was Kara’s turn to blush.

“Then you’re more experienced at this than I seem to be,” Lena laughed at her own insecurities and adjusted her hair. “When did you figure out this was actually a date?”

“About five minutes ago.” Kara and Lena shared a quiet laugh at the President’s expense.

“So we’re off to a great start,” Lena’s words dripped with sarcasm.

“No, don’t say that,” Kara playfully bumped her arm in Lena’s, “So far it’s just your typical first date fiascos.”

They stopped at the final door before the grand staircase so they could still be hidden from the press.

“I’ll just have to find a way to be different from the others.” Lena winked before turning to the nearest secret service agent.

The agent motioned to a companion at the bottom of the steps while whispering into his wrist-mic. The live orchestra of the East Room began playing “Hail to the Chief” as Prime Minister Himura and his wife emerged from a door across the hall. Kara and the others hung back to watch the entrance out of sight.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” A booming voice carried through the hall, “the President of the United States!”

Lena glanced over her shoulder and said, “By the way, nice earrings.”

The three officials slowly began their decent to the main foyer of the East Room. Alex grabbed a beet-red Kara and nearly dragged her down the small servant’s staircase.

The East Room was beautifully appointed with the Marine Corps Orchestra playing soft music for the first course or two. It was shortly after the main dish that Kara started to relax and truly enjoy her company for the night. As the President’s date she was sitting at the main table in the center of the room with the guests from Japan and Chief of Staff. Luckily for her, Jess and her husband were sitting to her left so she didn’t feel too intimidated by the high-profile guests at their table.

There was a bit of time before the dessert course and the stewards were busy clearing away dishes and refilling wine glasses. Kara had managed to stay away from most of the conversation at her table—especially since the President was speaking and translating for the guests of honor. How is it even possible for her to look even more stunning while speaking Japanese? Their table had pretty much broken into side conversations when Mr. Himura and Lena got up to greet the other tables and Kara was captivated by an argument between Cat Grant and General Becket.

“I’ve ordered many men on assignment to terrible places, Ms. Grant. I’ve sent them into the desert, to mountain ranges where the snow never melts; I’ve sent them to enemy-occupied cities by dropping them out of an airplane and I was with them every step of the way.” The general was clearly in no mood to be trifled with. “Are these the acts of cowardice you were talking about this afternoon?”

“Sir, if I may—”

They were speaking in hushed tones, but Kara was quite surprised someone with authority would be bold enough to make the same silly mistake she did.

“Wouldn’t alerting the public to the staggeringly dangerous vulnerabilities of the current state of our military be an act of conscience?”

“It would, but your motives are personal.” Lena chimed in as she returned to the table with Mr. Takara Himura.

“Madam President, defense spending is down 100 billion from twenty years ago.” The general continued.

“I believe that has something to do with our country no longer being in a fifteen-year war.”

“Op-Tempo is up and now Pers-Tempo is rising exponentially.”

“General, we have guests at our table who might not know what you’re talking about.” Lena looked subtly at her date and the guests of honor, all of whom were becoming quite interested in this debate.

Cat explained it to them, “Pers-Tempo is the rate of turn-over for individual jobs.”

“Exactly,” Lena said, “and I’m more than happy to take the blame for a booming economy that’s luring service men and women into the private sector.”

The general was looking a bit flushed now, and Kara could see the ghost of a smile playing at Mr. Himura’s lips.

“I guess we’ll let the American public make that distinction for themselves.”

“Indeed.” Lena said and, while she had been all smiles during her explanation of the army exercises, she leveled a stare at the general that could strip paint. Before she could say anything more, Kara made her tiny and not quite so insignificant presence known.

“Excuse me, General Becket?” The whole table turned to look at Kara as if noticing her for the first time that night.

“Yes?” He managed to grit out.

“I-uh, I noticed that among your many decorations is the Distinguished Service Medal.”

“Yes, I won it while on temporary duty with the U.S.S. Talbot.”

“I know, sir, my step-father was in the military.” Kara said, “The thing is, the Talbot was never fired on, and it never fired its guns.”

“What are you implying?”

“Sir, I’m sure I’m wrong, but I don’t understand how you actually earned that medal.”

The table remained silent for several heartbeats while everyone digested that piece of information. Finally, the silence was broken by Lena’s quiet comment to Mr. Himura and his soft laugh at what was spoken.

Lena turned from Mr. Himura to look at Kara’s embarrassed and slightly worried expression. The President had been fighting back-ally battles with General Becket all week trying to get him not to do those interviews. Even Maggie had been at a loss for how to convince him to step off his high horse. But here came Kara Danvers, fresh off the boat reporter and resident giant killer, calling out a three-star general at a state dinner without so much as flinching.

“On that note.” Lena rose from the table and turned to hold a hand out for Kara. “May I have this dance, Ms. Danvers?”

If possible, Kara turned an even more alarming shade of pink and fiddled with her glasses. “Uh, yeah, I guess. I-I mean, yes, Ma’am, I’d love to.”

President Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers walked hand-in-hand to the center of the dance floor accompanied by many appreciative “ooh’s” and “ahh’s” from of the guests.

“Madam President,” Kara whispered in a panic, “I can’t lead.”

“But I can.” Lena gave Kara a marvelous smile as the orchestra began once more.

-           -           -

As Lena led her elegantly across the dance floor, Kara became aware of the numerous pairs of eyes following them. The room quieted as all conversation stopped and the guests fixated on the captivating sight. Kara glanced at the tables as they moved around the room and chanced a glance at Alex and Maggie who were holding hands and smiling as they watched the pair.

“I don’t know how you do it.” Kara stated.

“My mother forced my brother and I to learn ballroom dance at a young age.”

“No, I mean the whole song and dance routine.” Kara focused her attention on Lena’s face. “You’re a CEO one moment, then President Luthor the next, and I’m imagining there’s a ‘mom’ mode in there somewhere.”

“Mommy.” Lena broke her concentration on the movements and led them to a smooth repetitive circle. More couples were joining them on the dance floor. “Conner calls me ‘mommy.’”

“I’m just curious as to who I saw in the Chief of Staff’s office on Tuesday.” Kara could see the beginnings of a crack forming in the President’s carefully placed mask.

“You saw me,” she said, “just Lena. The same woman who called you for a date.”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen her around tonight.” Lena looked at their feet to hide her face.

“It’s not often I can just be myself,” she said, “and never at formal functions like this.”

“Then why ask me out to one?”

“Because I’m the President.” Lena explained. “If I have a date to a formal event, the press has nothing to stand on because I always take a staff member to these things. But if word got out that you were over for dinner and a movie…”

“It would take an entire week for the media to let that bone go.” Kara finished for her.

“But, Madam President,” Kara objected, “Now you just have a room full of people looking at you wondering who I am and why I’m even here since I don’t work at the White House.”

“First of all, they’re not looking at me. And the answers to their questions are straightforward enough: ‘Kara Danvers’ and ‘because she said yes.’”

By then the President’s mask had all but disappeared and it was just the two of them: Lena and Kara. They talked about everything from work, to pizza toppings, to Disney movies, and even Conner’s favorite flavor of ice cream. Kara enjoyed the way Lena’s eyes sparkled when she talked about her son. They were eventually asked to sit for their dessert by Maggie and Alex, and their table had finally gotten itself back together after Kara’s scandalous insinuations.

Throughout the after dinner drinks and on the drive home, Kara couldn’t fathom why she had been so against the President in the first place.


	10. Flower Shop

Mike and Jess were at their desks in the oval foyer when Lena arrived that Monday morning at the ungodly hour of five o’clock. This was unusual for two reasons: 1) the President never got to the office before six unless absolutely necessary. Mike even has an image burned in his head of the President in her pajamas and slippers yelling at the joint chiefs in the situation room at four in the morning. 2) The President never comes in early when it’s a day Conner goes to school. Lena has even been known to come back to the office after putting Conner to sleep if she absolutely needed to be there for a meeting, but normally breakfast with Conner before seeing him off to school was sacred time not to be infringed upon.

This morning, for whatever reason, Lena Luthor walked right up to her secretary and personal aide with a bounce in her step and a brilliant smile on her face.

“Good morning, Jess!” she said. Jess waved briefly from her place at the computer without bothering to even glance at the odd sight before her. “Morning, Mike.”

“Good morning, Madam President.” He responded. “James and Cat are in the oval waiting for you. They said there was a scheduling hiccup of some sort they’d like to go over with you.”

“Fine by me.” Lena took the offered portfolio from Mike and started flipping through the first few overnight memos. “Can you get me the number of a local florist?”

“Yes, Ma’am. To whom would you like the flowers sent and what style?” Mike was already poised to take notes and waiting for further instructions.

“I want to do it myself, I just need the phone number.”

That caused Jess to stop her endless typing and look up at her best friend with suspicious eyes.

“I-I don’t understand…” said Mike.

“I want the number of a florist.” Lena looked at Jess to make sure she was indeed speaking English. It was more common than she’d like, but not wholly unexpected considering she knew half a dozen languages.

Jess nodded and asked, “Would you prefer a direct line?”

“I still don’t—”

Lena turned to face Mike again, who took at least two steps back anticipating a signature Luthor lecture.

“I’d like to send some flowers, Mike. I don’t want to staff it out, I don’t want to issue an executive order or convene a grand jury. I just want a phone number.”

With that the President walked into the oval office where James and Cat were waiting to ruin her upbeat morning.

“Madam President,” Cat began, “we need five minutes to go over some scheduling changes with you before your first meeting.”

“I just need two minutes to make a phone call, then I’m all yours.” Lena picked up the phone and waited as Jess transferred the call to her open line.

“Who are we calling, Ma’am?” James asked.

“We are calling no one, Mr. Olsen.” Lena said while fixing him with a pointed look.

“I’m sorry, who are you calling?”

The look Lena gave him could have easily set any lesser man on fire.

“I’m calling the phi omega alumni chapter of the sisterhood for the organization of it’s none of your damn business. Now be quiet or I’ll kick you out of my office.”

James was now clearly sweating in his suit and Cat was pretty sure she saw him swallow.

“You really walked into that one.” She whispered.

“Shut it.” James said through gritted teeth.

-           -           -

Just outside, Mike and Jess were back at work when Maggie walked up to the closed door of the oval. When she gestured at the door to Mike he shrugged and quickly left the room. Maggie turned to Jess for help.

“What’s the President doing here so early?” she asked.

“Haven’t the foggiest.” Jess replied.

Suddenly the intercom next to Jess blared to life with Lena’s disgruntled voice.

“Jess, do you know what color roses signify ‘thank you’ or perhaps ‘friendship?’”

“Does this have anything to do with Kara Danvers?” Maggie asked with a slight tilt to her head.

Jess gave her an exasperated glare. “Do you know the answer to this one or are you going to make me Google it?”

“Pink and yellow.” Maggie responded.

Jess quickly relayed the information through the intercom and the women waited in silence for the next question they both knew was coming. Maggie threw a dollar bill on the table and Jess did the same as they both started counting down on their fingers.

“Jess, do you have any idea where my credit cards might be?” Lena asked through the intercom.

“They’re in storage in Metropolis with the rest of your personal items.”

Jess slid both bills into the top drawer of her desk as Maggie let out a full belly laugh.

“Double or nothing on her buying the entire flower shop?” she asked.

“You’re on.” Jess replied as they both got out their wallets.

-           -           -

“Listen, it might be better if you just bill my company for the flowers” Lena said to the phone as she began playing with the cord, “Oh…yes, I understand. That shouldn’t be a problem…what’s the minimum for a business purchase? Mhmm…How about I buy one of everything and if it’s not enough for the minimum you can bill me the full amount anyway.”

James and Cat exchanged a worried glance as the President continued her phone call. If this was over Kara Danvers they were about to have some trouble on their hands.

“Delivery is to the Daily Planet, office of Kara Danvers…K-A-R-A, yes, just whatever fits in her office and you can give the rest away to whomever you’d like. A note? No, it’s quite alright, I’ll send a currier to deliver the note,” she chuckled a little at the florist’s joke, “Yes, I have no idea what I’m going to write so I’ll need the extra time. Okay, thanks again. Bye.”

“Okay,” she said to the room as Maggie entered, “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

-           -           -

Kara Danvers was running late. Well, not really considering it was a Monday and she didn’t need to be at the offices until noon anyway. Since Snapper’s intimidation tactics hadn’t appeared to work, Kara was summoned back to the main offices to work on more useless articles that would never be published. At least her ‘un-publishable columns’ were being returned to her with less and less bloody red marks from Snapper.

As soon as she arrived at her floor with coffee for her friends, she was swept immediately into Snapper’s office by her cubical-mate, Carson.

“Apparently you wanted to see me?” Kara asked as she entered her boss’ office. He rose from his desk to pace around the large room as he gave his speech.

“So there I was, thinking maybe I should hire that girl Kara Danvers for the Daily Planet. She seems to be very popular with the readers and critical of the administration’s lack of transparency. And it’s not like she knows very many people in town…”

Kara was feeling smaller and smaller with each passing remark, but when Snapper threw a copy of the Washington Post on his coffee table, she had no choice but to step up and take a peek.

“Then I picked up the morning post,” he concluded.

The article entitled "Most Eligible Bachelorette Off The Market?" was highlighted by a massive photo of Kara being dipped mid-waltz by the President.

“Mr. Snapper, I—” Kara began, but was quickly drowned out by Snapper’s red-faced outburst.

“What the hell happened?!”

“She called me at home, and—”

“I thought you hated her!”

“No! It was innocent, just dinner, I swear. Her real date canceled at the last minute because she got sick and there wasn’t another White House staffer to go with.”

“Are you telling me she couldn’t find another date out of the 35,000 White House employees?” Snapped ran a hand over his balding head. “Did you sleep with her?”

“Excuse me?” Kara squeaked. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“It is because when it’s the President, it’s never personal,” he retorted, “I hired your reputation, Kara. I wanted the rottweiler, not a chihuahua!”

“That’s unfair!”

“It’s incredibly unfair!” he roared. “Politics is all about perception. You of all people should know that.”

“You’re making way too much of this.”

“Am I? This is your time, Kara. You’re sitting at the grown-up table now and you have a chance to be an ace reporter. But this relationship had better go all the way, because with the leader of the free world there is no halfway. You have from here to your cubical to decide if you’re going to be a heavy hitter or a cocktail party joke.”

Snapper returned to his desk and began to angrily demolish some poor reporter’s article.

“There is no relationship, sir. It was one dinner.”

Snapper took his time taking a deep breath and letting it out before responding to Kara. He honestly didn’t have anything against her, and, for a 35 year old with no formal education in journalism, she was way ahead of the curve. He just didn’t want to see her throw it all away for something as silly as a political misstep.

“My suggestion is that you either take control and find a way to use this to your advantage or you bow out now. I’ll give you the day to decide.”

Kara nodded once and slowly began the short walk to her cubical. There seemed to be something happening as everyone in the office was suddenly watching her and there were at least three of her co-workers hovering by her tiny space.

“What’s everyone—oh, golly…”

Kara stopped as she rounded the corner and got a first look inside her office. There were vases of flowers lining every possible square inch of her desk, filing cabinets, and floor—even her chair had a vase or two balanced precariously on it. No two bouquets were the same and the sheer variety of flowers, some of which she had never before seen, had completely taken her breath away.

“It’s from her.” Carson said.

“Yeah, right,” Sarah scoffed, “I’m sure she had some White House flunky send them.”

“No, really! I talked to the messenger myself when he brought the card in. He said the President took ten minutes to write the card and she went through three drafts.”

“What’s it say, Kara?”

Sarah nudged her towards the corner of her desk with the card leaning against a square vase. She opened the simple blue and grey card with shaking hands and read the hand-written note inside to her colleagues.

“It says, ‘Thank you for joining me last Friday, I had a great time. Maybe we can do it again as ‘just us’ sometime.’ There’s a smiley face at the end.” Kara began to laugh at Lena’s silly attempt at being normal by adding that—as if it could possibly downplay filling your plus-one’s office with flowers as a thank you.

“Nice catch, Kara!” Carson said as he gently punched her arm.

“Wait, what?” she asked turning from person to person as they gave her thumbs up or clapped her back.

“You’re the President’s girlfriend.” Sarah barely managed to say around the grin threatening to break her face in half. Her co-workers slowly meandered back to their desks after congratulating her, but Kara remained standing in front of her tiny cubical-turned-flower-shop too stunned to move.


	11. Spotlight Feature

Maggie honestly didn’t know what to expect on Tuesday morning when Cat randomly showed up at her office.

“Can the two of you talk for a second out here?” Cat asked as soon as James opened Maggie’s office door.

“What’s going on?” Maggie asked.

“Did something happen?” James chimed in; he was glancing around to see who was walking around the halls.

“Nothing,” Cat replied, “but I wanted to tell you this in a place with people so you couldn’t get upset.”

“I don’t understand,” James said, “Why would we be upset if nothing’s wrong?”

“We’re offering Kara the Spotlight job.”

“Are you joking?” He whispered.

“No.”

“You can’t possibly think this is a good idea.” Maggie seconded.

“I thought you liked her?” Cat said with a smile laced with arsenic.

“As a date, not as the sole author of a feature article!” Maggie’s voice was just barely being contained.

“Well, it’s not my decision anymore.”

“Cat!” James yelled in disbelief.

“Keep it down!” Cat tried to calm the waves tension rolling off the two.

“What the hell made you think I wouldn’t scream just because there were people?!” James yelled.

“There was a thirty percent chance.” Cat explained.

“CAT!” They both objected.

“All right, back in the room.” She sighed. Maggie reopened the door and Cat followed her. James was the last to enter the room and slammed the door behind him. He turned to the women with the broken knob still in his hand, but they were busy gaping at the splintered doorjamb and cracked plaster along the wall.

“So…” James tried to lighten the atmosphere of the room, “How much do you think this is gonna cost?”

-           -           -

James was calm, cool, and collected. He got a crash course in carpentry, enjoyed a second breakfast, and even managed to organize the useless binder of polling data that Winn had given him in the three hours following his ‘temper tantrum’ as Cat called it.

He had managed to get ahold of Kara Danvers after hunting down her sister at the gym—which was a truly terrifying sight. If you ever wanted to see how little power you have, just head down to the gym and watch Alex beat the crap out of some rookies twice her size. Anyway, the younger Danvers was much more manageable and only objected a little to being summoned to the White House like a child to the principal’s office.

Thus James found himself not so subtly ordered to sit and wait in Jess’ office until Mike brought the new reporter—if you could call her that. He had read her prior articles, of course, and they actually weren’t half bad. There was a clear tone of rebellion and flat-out rejection of their ideals, but he was a speechwriter and could definitely work with that. It was the lukewarm understanding and resentment he took issue with, but there was no indecisiveness to Kara’s writing. Every statement was supported with facts and data, and every argument flowed easily from there. She might not agree with them, but the girl could write when she cared about the subject.

“Have you noticed that I’m one of the few people in this building who’s not bent out of shape about the whole Kara thing?”

“You heard the news and slammed the door so hard it broke,” Jess responded and poked James to get him off her desk. “You heard a reporter would be following us around and you broke the White House.”

“Yeah, but I’m over it now.” James missed Jess’ eye roll because Mike had just walked Kara into the secretary’s office. “Ms. Danvers.”

“Kara is fine,” she responded. He motioned for her to follow and they began the short walk to his office.

“Were you offered coffee or…?”

“I’m fine,” she said curtly, “I mean, yes, I was offered something to drink—and my coat, actually, but I’m fine.”

“I see...” The girl was clearly nervous and acting as if he was going to reprimand her for something. They quickly entered his office and he shut the door behind them so they could have some semblance of privacy amongst the chaos of the communications offices.

“So I have to say, I haven’t seen someone take on General Becket like that in a long time.”

“Yes, well, Mr. Olsen—”

“James.”

“Yes, sir.” He smiled at her deflection of the informality. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since your office called me this morning, and I have something to say in my defense, if I may.”

“I… okay?” James was taken aback by Kara’s defensiveness hidden beneath her nerves. He thought the girl was quite bold going toe to toe with Becket, especially after having gone a few rounds himself with the general last week.

“I think it’s wrong to summon someone to the White House to reprimand them simply for voicing opposition. I think that was very wrong, and incredibly inappropriate.” Here she paused as if trying to find a third way of explaining her same point. “It was inappropriate, sir, and—”

“It’s wrong?”

“Yes!” Bless her heart, the woman actually stomped her foot. It took every ounce of willpower for James to continue with a straight face as he took a seat behind the safety of his desk.

“I’ll keep that in mind, but you weren’t called here to be reprimanded.”

Now it was Kara’s turn to be thrown off guard.

“Why, then?”

“You’re here so I can offer you a job—”

“I’m asking because I do not think it’s fair that I should be expected to consistently play the role of antagonist in this game. I understand I got my big break after those inflammatory articles, but I’d like to grow as a writer and it’s not like—I’m not, you know…” Kara petered off as her brain finally processed James’ words.

“There it is.”

“You want to offer me a job?” With that, she fell more than sat in the chair facing his desk.

“Not me, necessarily—I’m just the messenger, but yes.”

Kara looked like someone had just thrown a pie at her face. “I don’t understand, sir.”

“What are you missing?”

“I have always been opposed to this White House. I wrote an article saying the President and her brother were trying to reinstate the monarchy. And then I basically called the President a murderer in no uncertain terms.”

The way she was going on, James was beginning to be worried about the possibility of a panic attack. “Even if you hadn’t told me all of that, I would already know it because I’ve read the articles and I actually thought the prose wasn’t half bad. And besides, the President still keeps copies of your articles in her desk.”

“She’s read them?” Kara’s face paled considerably.

“Yeah.”

“And she liked them?!”

“We think you have an interesting writing style. Look, Kara—”

“Mr. Olsen, I loathe almost everything you guys believe in.” At this, Kara stood back up and clutched her small shoulder bag to her side as if it was providing her with a direct injection of bravado.

“Where are you going?” James asked as he looked up at her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, “I’m standing up, because I need to make a point and it’s important.”

“Okay…”

“I’ve found the President to be smug and patronizing,” James could see her mentally check her posture and straighten her back. “It’s accepted at face value that those who disagree with her are somehow lesser beings or ignorant.”

“I don’t think you’re a lesser person than I am.” He said.

“How many people read those articles and assumed that I was mean, spiteful, and stupid?”

“No one. You were an invaluable asset during the campaign—believe it or not—because you highlighted our weak spots! You were the Knight of Mirrors showing is stark contrast what other people saw when they looked at us.” At this James paused and took a deep, calming breath. At the very least he had to give her credit for consistently getting everyone fired up and spirited. “Cat thinks you might need therapy, that’s about the only real negative thing I’ve heard. Are you in therapy?”

“No,” she responded quickly, “and I don’t see how there’s anything wrong with therapy if it helps, but—that doesn’t matter. The point is…”

“Kara, stop,” he interrupted. “Don’t you want to write an exclusive about the President and her son?”

“Every reporter at the Daily Planet wants to do that, but—”

“The President likes smart people who aren’t afraid to disagree with her. “I highly doubt she’d trust anyone else to write a non-biased piece—especially one of this importance.”

“But if I write the exposé…there’s a strong possibility it would be biased against her.” Kara sat back down in her chair.

“That’s a risk we don’t mind taking,” James said, “because the truth is an absolute defense.”


	12. A Business Relationship

Maggie and James followed the President into the Roosevelt room Tuesday afternoon with their arms full of binders and portfolios from Winn’s latest polling. After the morning’s excitement, the rest of their day seemed almost boring in it’s routine. Well, if you could call arguing with congressmen and dissecting polling data routine…

“Madam President, Ms. Danvers is here to see you,” she said, “I have her waiting in my office.”

“Thank you, I’ll be right over,” Lena said.

“I’m, uh, getting questions about Kara in the Press room,” Maggie started in—keep it professional and the President might not eviscerate her in the middle of the bullpen. “How do you want us to handle it?”

The look Lena sent Maggie could’ve frosted the Sahara, but James decided to jump in and help, “I think we should have a consensus on how the White House is going to handle it; put up a united front so to speak.”

“And what, exactly, is the ‘it’ we’re handling?” Lena asked.

Maggie had officially reached the ‘fuck it’ stage of this conversation and asked, “When reporters ask if you’re dating Kara Danvers, what should I say?”

“Well, let’s see. One, we’re not dating; two, no further comment.”

“No comment?” James asked in disbelief.

“What do you want me to say, James?” This was clearly uncharted waters for the President and even James could tell she was out of her depth. “I have this amazing woman waiting in my office after your little talk and I have no idea why. It could be anything from ‘hey, thanks for the flowers’ to ‘stuff your Spotlight feature’—that’s my spectrum!”

She took a deep breath to calm herself down while Maggie failed in her attempt to stop a broad smile from adorning her face. The President was well and truly smitten and there was nothing to do about it now other than let it run its course—whatever the ‘it’ happened to be.

“I just…” Lena paused again to gather her thoughts into a comprehensive sentence, “I don’t think it’s appropriate to have the White House comment on something so trivial. We have real work that needs to be done, so if you get any questions, kindly direct their attention to the latest and greatest of our achievements.”

“I agree, Madam President.” Maggie said.

With that, Lena walked out of the Roosevelt room with her head held high and her hands awkwardly clenching into fists by her side.

“Is it just me or is the President nervous?” James asked.

“She’s absolutely terrified.” Maggie said with a hearty laugh.

-           -           -

Lena entered the oval in a bit of a huff from Cat’s office entrance fully expecting it to be empty, but was more than shocked when she saw none other than Kara Dancers staring out one of the windows behind the Resolute desk. She hadn’t heard Lena enter the room, but remained standing with slightly heavy shoulders before the window. Lena wondered just what had grabbed her attention so fully. Perhaps she was watching Jacob trim the rosebushes as Lena often did in her afternoons.

She stood with her arm across her stomach, clutching her elbow like it would protect her from this great big room. Lena knew better; the oval office was often hailed as an asset to any president wishing to exert their power, but truly it was the great equalizer. In here she wasn’t the President, she was merely Lena Luthor: a forty-year-old single mother of one. To anyone else, she never spent much time in the oval because she was busy running the country. But Jess knew Lena felt incredibly small and decidedly unworthy. The room wasn’t too bad when it was filled with her closest advisors and friends, but the emptiness was often too much for Lena to bear on her own.

And there stood Kara Danvers, subconsciously conforming to the same feeling of powerlessness. The spell was broken when she suddenly turned towards the President with soft eyes like she had been expecting her any moment now.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Madam President.”

The President hesitated only a second before walking forward to stand at the presidential seal in the center of the room—she was meeting her halfway.

“I thought we agreed you’d call me Lena.” She said.

“You suggested it, but I never agreed.” Kara said as she took a few steps forward. “I guess you could always order me to call you Lena, but—”

“It would defeat the purpose.” Lena finished. There was a short awkward pause as both women attempted to get their bearings. “Did you like the flowers?”

“Yes, they were lovely,” Kara said with a smile while tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “They caused quite a scene in the office.”

“That…wasn’t my intention. The flower store I called had this rule about minimums. And I didn’t want to use government funds, but my personal funds have been frozen since the election so I had to use L-Corp and…” Lena faded away when she realized tat she had caught the Kara Danvers’ rambling bug. She glanced at her feet to gather her thoughts and regroup, but at Kara’s soft laugh she looked up.

“You’re normally the more articulate one,” she said and began her own walk to meet Lena.

“I’m just now realizing that the flowers might’ve been a bit much.” Lena admitted with an awkward laugh. She tried to ignore the heat rising into her cheeks.

“It’s fine. Now that I understand the kinks in the system I’m actually quite flattered you went through all that trouble to send me anything at all.”

“I was only trying to say thank you for being my plus one for the evening.”

The women were now standing no more than an arms length away from each other and Lena was starting to wonder how much time remained before another crisis stole her away from this quiet moment.

“Marine One is about a minute away, Ma’am.” Jess poked her head in to announce. Not much quiet time at all, apparently. At Kara’s confused look she explained.

“I’m giving a luncheon speech at the Mayor’s conference this evening so I’ll have to leave soon. I’m sorry—”

“Oh, no, that’s fine. I just stopped by to—”

“Are you free for dinner Thursday night?” Lena couldn’t tell who was more shocked at the words that came flying out of her mouth, but she’d bet her entire life savings that Kara was not half as surprised.

“I, um—actually, I have some concerns,” after witnessing Lena’s emotionless Presidential façade falling back into place, Kara tried to soften the blow, “not many, just a few—well, one, really. I just have the one concern.”

“Would this concern have anything to do with one of us being the President?” Lena asked with a raised brow.

“Okay, see, I might not know you at all, but I do know that look,” Kara gestured to Lena’s expression, “is just you trying to make light of this.”

“I promise I’m not mocking you in any way,” Lena assured her, “I’m just a woman asking you over for a dinner.”

Out of nowhere, a loud clamoring—not unlike a jackhammer—sounded from the yard just outside the oval office.

“What’s that?” Kara asked looking towards the wall of windows.

“That’s my ride.”

Lena looked to the window in time to see the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and several decoys land on her back lawn. The President crossed the room to don her coat before returning to her desk to pack a small briefcase.

“My boss doesn’t like that I went on a date with you.” Kara blurted. “He has serious concerns about me exploring a social, you know, scenario-thing, with the President of the United States.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t seem that good to me either.”

“I think…” she took a deep breath to help her push the words out of her mouth, “I think I have some reservations about it too.”

“All right.” Lena was careful not to swing one way or the other and scare her off. She wasn’t outright rejecting anything, just stating some hiccups that needed to be clarified. No need to panic, she’s probably just as nervous right now and she doesn’t have the benefit of being the commander in chief.

“It’s just that, since James offered me the spotlight position, I think it’d be a conflict of interest, right?”

“Kara, I have no problem with a reporter dating the President of the United States.” Lena deadpanned.

“Well…” Kara took a deep breath and pulled herself up to her full height and looked the President dead in the eye, “I have a problem with it.”

“I understand, after all, I was the one who suggested your name.” Lena walked back to face Kara’s gaze and say her piece before Jess ushered her out of the room. “I will respect your wishes and keep this a work-only relationship should you choose to accept the job.”

At Kara’s relaxed sigh, she continued, “Let us know tomorrow morning what you’ve decided.”

“Thank you, Madam President.”

Kara watched the President turn and walk away without glancing back until she was already in the helicopter. Jess came in shortly after to lead her back to the lobby of the West Wing where she would shadow Maggie and James for the evening as a sort of trial period. That night, and well into the morning hours, she kept praying to whomever would listen that she didn’t just do a good thing poorly.


	13. Queen And Rook

Kara arrived at the White House promptly at five, but had no problem waiting in Jess’ office for the President to arrive after her trip to India. What she didn’t expect was the President breezing past her with a box of Chinese take-out in her hands.

“Jess, you can send Ms. Danvers in when she arrives,” the President mentioned in passing.

“Welcome back, Madam President.” Kara called from her seat by Mike’s desk. She rose from her chair and stood facing Lena from across the room. She couldn’t help but think the President looked quite adorable with a mouthful of lo mien and eyes wide as saucers. She quickly swallowed her noodles and ushered Kara into the oval office.

“And how are you this evening, Ms. Danvers?” Lena sat down at one of the couches while Kara sat opposite her. There was quite the elaborate chessboard set up between the two of them on the coffee table.

“I’m fine, Ma’am. How was the summit and flight?”

“The summit was exhausting and the flight wasn’t much better.” Lena took the time to get another mouthful of noodles and look over Kara as the reporter examined the chess set.

“Are we going to play chess, Ma'am?” Kara asked with a hint of a smile behind her eyes.

“Possibly,” Lena looked at her with suspicion, “Why do you ask?”

“Maggie said she could only get you to open up when you play chess.”

“Maggie says a lot of shit.” Lena spat without thinking, there's no possible way Maggie would sell her out like that after texting her direct orders to play at least one game with the blonde. At Kara’s wide eyes she quickly followed with. “That was off the record! The last thing I need is for someone to tell the world about my filthy sailor’s mouth.”

Kara gave a hearty laugh at this. “From what Alex told me, most of the world’s leaders already know about your cursing habits first hand.”

There was a brief pause as both Lena and Kara sized up the other; Lena wondering if she could actually trust the reporter, and Kara wondering which version of Lena she was going to get tonight.

“The Prime Minister of India gave me a few chess sets from his private collection,” Lena started while trying to use the takeout box to hide her shaking hands. “I wanted to give them away as gifts. This one's for you, but it'll have to stay here for the weekend at least so the staff can record it as an official gift.”

“I’m really overwhelmed by this, and probably more so because I don’t actually know how to play chess.” Kara joked to lighten the atmosphere.

“I’ll help you out.”

“I don’t understand,” Kara said with a tilt to her head, “Are you going to give me lessons or something?”

“I was actually hoping you’d play a game with me during our interview tonight.” Lena studied the paper box in her hands and picked at her food to avoid eye contact with the blonde, “Maggie was right, I do open up more when I’m distracted. And I realize I haven’t been very fair to you in our previous interviews.”

“Now _that_ I noticed.” Kara said with a genuine smile, “I’d be honored to play a game with you, Madam President.”

“You know,” the President looked straight into her eyes, “when it’s just us you can call me Lena.”

“I’ll try…Lena, but I’m already so used to the formal titles.”

“You seem to be doing all right so far.” Lena allowed herself a small smile. She had been trying to distance herself from these interviews as much as possible in the hopes of squashing any stray feelings she may have towards the reporter. The crux of the matter remained that until she published the spotlight feature, there could be nothing but professional discourse between them. “Shall we begin?”

Kara looked over the board while desperately trying to remember Maggie’s rather hasty crash course in chess from earlier that evening. She picked up one of the pawns at random and moved it two spaces forward.

“Ah, the Fibonacci opening,” Lena said with false bravado, “Very interesting.”

“You’re just going to mess with me this whole time aren’t you?”

“That is the current plan, yes.”

They continued moving various pieces around the board, some with more success with others until Kara let curiosity get the best of her.

“I heard something about China and Taiwan while I was waiting for you,” she mentioned, “Something about a Patriot missile test?”

Lena blinked just once before responding, “We’ll have to have you start wearing earmuffs around the oval from now on.” Kara couldn’t tell if she was joking or completely serious.

“Do you mind me asking how bad it’s getting out there tonight?”

“It depends,” she said while taking a break to stir her noodles, “Are you Kara Danvers the reporter or a friend?”

Kara mulled it over for a moment before responding.

“Friend, but this whole conversation is entirely off the record, of course,” Kara let a giggle slip out, “We’ll call it deep background.”

Lena was in no mood for humor. If Kara was getting into national security matters, they had to take this seriously.

“It’s bad.” She said and took a deep, calming breath; “The Taiwan Straight is probably one of the most dangerous places on earth. Tonight they’ve got four hundred thousand troops on high alert. China’s naval presence is unprecedented.”

“Would you ever ask Taiwan to call off the Patriot missile tests?”

“Would you?” Lena asked as she cocked her head to the side.

“I’m not the least bit qualified to make that decision.” Kara scoffed.

“Sure you are. You’re smart, observant, and intuitive.”

Kara looked at the chessboard and thought about her options as a fictitious commander before responding. “…If China’s got their arsenal aimed at Taiwan, shouldn’t the island be able to defend themselves?”

“I agree, but you need to see the bigger picture.” Lena said motioning to the chessboard. “Perhaps the missile tests aren’t why China is showing their teeth.”

“What is it then?”

“By the end of the week, Taiwan’s going to announce they’re holding their first free elections.”

“You’re kidding.” Kara's eyes widened at the news.

Lena picked up her box of take out and pointed to Kara's side of the board with her chopsticks, “Always defend your queen.”

While Kara was staring at the board wondering how to maneuver her queen out of harm’s way, Jess came into the oval to give Lena a slip of paper. The President left for the situation room with a promise to return as Kara’s defensive strategy seemed to grow more and more futile.

-           -           -

It was around eight at night when Lena began their fourth game. She had stepped out a few times for the situation room and at least once to spend some time with Conner. The boy was pretty well spent after their long flight back from India, but when he woke up suddenly to request a bedtime story Lena couldn’t resist.

“This is a beautiful chess set.” Kara commented as she moved the tiny horse to the middle of the board—no, wait, the knight.

“It’s hand-carved soapstone.” Lena said, “It belonged to the Prime Minister’s grandfather.”

“I’m surprised he gave it away.”

“He didn’t,” Lena smirked, “I won it off him in a game of chess—or should I say several games; best three out of five.” Lena moved her bishop to counter. “He must’ve watched me play ten people before asking for a game. Definitely the toughest opponent I’ve faced in a long time.”

They exchanged a few moves before Kara moved the castle-tower-thing from its place in the corner.

“Ah, the Evans Gambit.”

“Okay, now I know you’re just making these names up.”

“It’s a variation on the Giuoco Piano sequence, named after a British sea captain, W.D. Evans, who invented it in 1820.”

“All I did was move the tower.”

“It's called the 'rook,' and it’s a very popular move.”

“I’m taking your bishop.” Kara said, “And you should be impressed I knew what that piece was called.”

“Take your time.” Lena chuckled, “See the whole board.”

“When you stepped out earlier, were you meeting with the Chinese ambassador?”

“Among other things.” Lena said.

“How did it go?”

“About as well as you might expect,” Lena reclined in her seat to wait out Kara’s next move. “They want me to scale back our missile sales to Taiwan.”

“You wouldn’t stop arming Taiwan, right? Especially now that they’re trying to hold free elections.”

“Indeed.”

Kara looked closely at Lena’s face trying to see any hint of the woman behind the mask. Not in her small smile, not tilt of her head, not even a raised eyebrow, just—there! Yup, it was all in the eyes.

“But you didn’t tell him that, did you?”

“You’re really showing me something tonight.” Lena deflected as she looked down to hide her face, “A lot of spunk in your games, a lot of heart.”

“You know what? Bite me. You’re just upset I figured out your tell.”

Lena gave her a challenging look—eyebrow and all—before moving her rook into place. “Check.”

Kara gazed up to the deep green eyes of the President and felt as if the very ocean was speaking to her. The calm, cool demeanor the President often presented was merely a façade to comfort those who did not wish to see the deep turmoil lapping just beneath the surface. There was no doubt that if Lena wanted to she could easily drown Kara, or anyone else for that matter, without a second thought.

-           -           -

Lena returned from her latest meeting in the situation room with a bottle of wine and a cheese board from the mess. It was nearly ten o’clock and both women were feeling their long days, but neither was willing to end their little meeting. There’s something to be said about the companionship of someone who was not yet a friend, but no longer an enemy.

“Sorry, I got tied up.”

“It’s fine. Not like you have a country to run or anything.”

“Let’s get back to it.” Lena said as she began to reset the board.

“Lena, can I ask why you’re sending ships into the Taiwan Straight?” Kara picked at the snacks on the coffee table. “Wasn’t your goal to maintain a peaceful existence with China?”

“Look at the whole board.”

“I am—”

“You’re not.” She insisted as she picked up her own cluster of grapes. “Broaden your scope. It’s not just about Taiwan or their elections.”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder.” Lena said with an amused laugh.

“Okay,” Kara sat up straighter and rubbed her temples as she went back over the details of the evening, “What do I know? We have ships in the Taiwanese Straight.”

“Hmm, do we?” Lena asked with a coy smile.

“They’re on their way.” Kara clarified with a bit of an annoyed whine in her voice. It was always about the details with this woman!

“Is that the same thing?” Lena asked, “You’re a reporter, so theoretically you should know the power of diction.”

Kara stared at the chessboard in front of her for a while. She tried to go over all the possible angles of the situation in Taiwan and what she knew about their trade relations with China.

“How does it end?”

At that moment, Jess knocked on the door and entered to deliver a slip of paper to Lena. The president smiled as she read the note and placed the folded piece of paper on the table between them.

“You tell me.” She said.

“China stands down, they don’t want to piss off a superpower.” Lena nodded and picked up her wine glass. “Taiwan gets to test their Patriot missile, but just the one.” More nodding from Lena as she stacked their dishes in preparation for her exit. “But we have to give China something.”

“We agreed not to sell Taiwan any missiles for a decade.”

“But, Madam President—”

“Lena.”

“Fine. Taiwan can’t afford to buy any more missiles to begin with. That was the whole point of them buying only two and testing one so they can manufacture their own…”

Kara petered off as realization finally dawned. “You were never going to sell them any missiles in the first place.”

“But everyone wakes up tomorrow morning alive and with their pride in tact.”

“How did you learn to do that? Predict people's actions before they even knew what they were going to do next.”

“I have a lot of help,” she responded, “I look at the whole board, and I have a lot of faith in the overall nature of human beings.”

Lena moved her queen to a space two blocks in front of Kara’s black king and stood up. “Checkmate. I have to make some calls and thank people.”

Kara nodded and stood to gather her things and help Lena move the dishes to Mike’s desk.

“I think we did much better with this interview, wouldn’t you say?” Lena asked with a hopeful smile.

Kara agreed and Jess led her to the lobby of the West Wing. They had a driver drop her off at the pizzeria around one in the morning and she sent a quick text to Maggie as soon as she was safe inside the empty apartment.

“I need more chess lessons.”


	14. Morale Appointment

“Alex, she’s driving me insane!”

Kara Danvers was complaining about her lack of traction with the President while her sister cleaned her service pistol in the break room. It always fascinated her how the White House could look so opulent while the secret service offices in the basement looked just like any other office building.

“You’re the one who didn’t think dating her would be a good idea.”

“It’s a conflict of interest, we’ve already been over this.”

“And here you are complaining about how difficult your job is when you probably could’ve been done by now.”

Kara picked up one of the bullets and spun it on the table to keep her hands busy while her mind wandered. It’s not like dating her would’ve helped the story—might’ve made it easier for Lena to talk to her, but still. There had to be a way to replicate their ease of communication at the state dinner without compromising her job.

“She was fine at the state dinner,” Kara thought aloud, “Why is this any different?”

“She’s probably holding back because you asked her to.”

“But I didn’t! Well, not about the spotlight piece, just about the flirting and stuff.”

“I don’t think she sees much of a difference.” Alex laughed as she began reassembling her gun. “What if you flirted back a little? Throw the ball back in her court; see what happens.”

Kara sat back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, it seemed like a good idea, but she wasn’t sure how to pull it off without leading Lena on.

“Wouldn’t that be mean?”

“Jesus Christ,” Kara made a mental note for the future to only bug her sister for advice after she had trained the rookies. “She’s a grown woman, and she can definitely take care of herself.”

Okay, then, flirting with the President without actually trying to date her, she could do this, right? Totally within her wheelhouse...hopefully. Alex rose from the flimsy table and checked her utility belt and gear quickly while Kara gathered her bag. They headed out to the Lobby of the West Wing where their paths would diverge.

“Hey, have you eaten dinner?” Kara asked.

“Not yet.”

“I brought mine from home,” she smiled and whispered, “Left over pepperoni.”

“Sounds good,” Alex let out a small chuckle, “I’m surprised you haven’t—”

“I ate it already.”

“There it is.”

“Did you pack your dinner?” She asked with those big hopeful eyes.

“Kara, what the…?”

“Do you think you’ll be eating it?”

“You can’t have my dinner!”

With that, the siblings parted ways. Alex headed to the residences to take over the first shift of night duty for Conner while Kara made a beeline for the oval office.

-           -           -

When she arrived by Jess’ desk the woman simply waved her in without checking. Lena sat at the resolute desk signing what seemed to be an endless stack of papers. She glanced up briefly when Kara entered, but soon resumed her menial task.

“How is it my staff just lets you walk in here?”

“They seem to like me,” Kara said and went to pull over an armchair. “Well, except for Mrs. Grant.”

“My one true friend.”

Kara took a brief break as she watched Lena organize her desk so it’d be spotless and ready to go for tomorrow morning. “I am, actually, here for work, and I have to ask you about the tanker.”

“I’m sorry?” Lena paused in her stacking and shuffling to look at Kara sitting in her armchair like she owned the place.

“The tanker in the Gulf. You stopped it and I was curious as to what happened.”

“It was a Cyprus-flagged oil tanker, but our intelligence tracked the ship leaving Turkey.” Lena was tired. She honestly didn’t have time to discuss the nuances of UN trade sanctions with Kara after a fourteen-hour day.

“Right, and they had oil on board.”

“Yes, they did.” Lena finished cleaning her desk and made to leave the office, but paused when she realized Kara wasn’t following her.

“Are you going to have a serious discussion with me about this?”

Lena thought about it briefly before taking a deep breath and deciding to be blunt, “No.”

“No?”

“Not tonight, at least. It’s eight o’clock and I am officially off-duty. Today I saved twenty men from dying in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I negotiated a dispute between Egypt and Israel, and I saved a bunch of hostages in Columbia. The sun has set and I have earned my government salary and then some. I’m done working for the night.”

“I completely understand,” Kara said, and she really did. After all, in comparison what had she done today that could hold a candle for saving that many people? “I’ll see you tomorrow when you’re rested.”

Kara almost couldn’t believe how much smaller Lena looked after her immense sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Kara.”

She turned and walked out the door to the portico as Kara entered Jess’ office. The secretary actually looked up to greet her for once—probably thought it was Lena to be honest.

“Jess, what can I bribe you with to earn a favor?”

-           -           -

After her situation room meeting with the joint chiefs at a truly god-awful hour of the morning, Lena decided to continue and hopefully get a head start on her Friday. Now that the hostages were safely in transit, she mentally winced at her poor treatment of Kara from the night before. It’s not like she wasn’t justified in her temperament considering what all was on her plate yesterday, but still. It seemed like the reporter was brushing up on the bills and congressional reports to stay in the loop on everything going on at the White House. She had even heard a rumor that Kara frequently stole interns to explain the latest happenings to her.

Jess was, as per usual, hidden behind her desk already diligently working on the overnights while Mike attempted to get her hourly portfolios organized.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning, Madam President,” Mike responded as he handed her a stuffed portfolio from the top of the pile and returned to his sorting.

“Good morning, Ma’am,” Jess got up from her chair and walked into the oval office behind Lena to go over the major events of today’s schedule. “At noon you have a meeting with the East Asia team at eleven, Medicare at noon, and senior staff at two. You’ve also got Brennan and Landis in the Roosevelt room at seven.”

“There’s no way we could just cancel…oh, let’s say all of that?” Lena practically threw her portfolio on the couch and immediately sought out the hidden coffee trolley at the front of the room.

“Very funny, Madam President.” Jess turned to leave and called out the last of her news for the morning rundown. “And you have a meeting with Ms. Danvers. She’s waiting in Cat’s office.”

As Jess fled the room, Lena walked over to Cat’s office door and unceremoniously threw it open to find the blonde woman sitting in the visitor’s chair reading yet another report. If she didn’t know better she would’ve thought Kara worked here with all the research she’d been doing recently.

“I have an appointment with you?” she asked.

“I decided to see you during your business hours.” Kara called cheerfully as they made their way back to the oval office couches.

“How did you even get an appointment?”

“I know a guy who knows a guy.” She shrugged.

“Kara.”

“Good morning.”

“You made an appointment?”

“All nice and business-like.” Kara responded while pulling out a notepad with some facts and figures scrawled on it. “Yesterday you stopped a Cyprus-flagged oil tanker named ‘Kalipso.’ You thought it might be carrying petroleum products out of Iraq in violation of UN sanctions.”

Lena couldn’t stop the beaming smile and soft laughter from escaping. Of course Kara would be back to discuss her findings the next morning—during working hours—just as Lena requested. Apparently she had been worrying all morning over nothing seeing as Kara wasn’t the least bit angry about the incident.

“Yes, we boarded the ship, tested the oil, and determined its point of origin to be—wait for it—Iraqi.”

“And the company got fined.”

“Yes.” Lena reminded herself to be patient knowing when their conversation was headed. Why did she always end up crushing on the endlessly optimistic women?

“But they still get to sell the oil.”

Lena took a delicate sip of her coffee before responding “And the profits of the sale, unfortunately, exceed the fine.”

“It dramatically exceeds the fine! If you’re going to have sanctions, have sanctions. There should be genuine disincentive!”

“I agree.”

“Wait, what?” While Kara tried to regroup, Lena continued her explanation. “780,000 metric tons of oil sold in a friendly port against a measly two million dollar fine. If we’re going to have sanctions at all, I think we should make them stick. I wanted to seize the ship, confiscate the cargo, sell the oil, and use the money to beef-up anti-smuggling operations.”

“Why can’t you?”

“It’s not very nice.” She turned from the reporter to look over the various memos in her portfolio.

“Lena.”

“How did you get an appointment again?”

“I know people.”

“You moved to Washington six months ago.” She sniggered.

“I convinced someone I’d make your day better with my sunny disposition.”

All right, time to set it up, Luthor.

“I thought you didn’t want to take advantage of the situation by dating me.”

Kara’s cheeks burned and her rather hysterical laughter and attempt to brush off Lena’s comment simply proved her hypothesis correct.

“I call it like I see it.” Lena pressed.

“We’re not dating.”

“That’s kind of sad for you, isn’t it?” Lena glanced at Kara over the rim of her coffee mug and was not disappointed to see the reporter completely flummoxed. Her embarrassed blush had even spread to the tips of her ears and the base of her neck—wait, get your eyes away from there, Luthor.

“Why didn’t you just seize the oil?” Kara asked once she regrouped.

“It’s something that would be frowned upon by the vast majority of the countries that we have to deal with on a daily basis. Besides, they’re UN sanctions, not American ones.”

Lena finished organizing the overnights and started packing her satchel for the first round of meetings while Kara continued talking.

“So, because some of our businesses might buy some of that oil one day we can’t seize the cargo even though 200 sovereign nations thinks it’s a great idea. What kind of a free world are you running, Lena?”

It sounded like an insult, but even the President could hear the playful laughter in her voice.

“I really don’t know yet, Kara, it’s not even noon.” Lena threw over her shoulder with an honest to god giggle as she turned to exit the oval through the chief of staff’s office. Since when did Lena Luthor giggle?

“Have a great day, Madam President!” she called.

Outside the oval, Kara ignored Mike’s bug-eyed stare and stood in front of Jess’ desk.

“Did I just hear the President laugh?” the secretary asked, “And at eight in the morning?”

“Told you I was good for morale,” Kara winked. “But I need to ask for another favor.”

“You’re going to go bankrupt when I cash these in, you do know that, right?”


	15. All My People

Maggie always enjoyed the morning briefings—even on the weekends. Rarely anything happens between midnight and nine in the morning so she’s able to take her time, include jokes, answer random questions, stuff that continually builds the President’s image as an affable leader who’s down to earth.

“That’s a full lid for today, everyone,” she announced, “I’ll see you at two for the lunch update if there’s anything new.”

At that moment, her secretary ran over to the podium and whispered something in her ear while handing her a thin stack of index cards.

“Hang on a second!” she called to the room.

“Okay, today around nine o’clock,” she took a calming breath before continuing, “two gunmen opened fire at First Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.”

The briefing room exploded with questions and reporters calling for her attention. Maggie took the secure cell phone and Bluetooth ear bud offered by her secretary.

“I’m going to have to listen in while I talk to you.” She quickly jotted some notes on the back of a card as the information was relayed to her, “The high school track team, the Grainger Wildcats…they were holding conditioning practice at a nearby track during the church service—it was the coach who called the local law enforcement. Right now, details are still being hammered out, but it’s looking like 35 people are dead and over 60 injured with 15 of those critical.”

Maggie took a deep breath as she processed the information herself. There was no way today was going to end well.

“I’ll try to answer your questions the best I can while I wait for another update. Mark, then Crystal.”

-           -           -

Kara sat at the pizzeria fiddling with the tiny chess set that Maggie had picked up for her last week. Apparently if you were going to play chess with the President of the United States every other night, you had to learn the rules sooner than later. Lena jokingly threatened to kick Kara out of the White Hose until she learned the names of all the pieces at the very least.

The rook could move like a wall, but the knight could only do funny jumps, and the queen was important somehow. She glanced at her ‘How To’ book for the thousandth time willing the information to enter her brain through osmosis. There had to be another way to get the President to open up to her like that first night. Not that there was anything wrong with their subsequent interviews and Alex’s flirting idea, but they just weren’t as… what was the word, revealing? No, that sounded hinky. Educational? Well, that’s just not true, she always learned something at their meetings.

And it’s not like she wasn’t seeing more of her sister’s side of things now that she was talking with the President on a regular basis. It’s just that there was some obvious piece that she was missing before, but she still didn’t have yet. Like a jigsaw that was missing ten center pieces…all in the same spot…and there was no picture to reference.

“God, why would someone do that?” Alonzo Di Nublia said to himself as he watched the television.

Kara looked to the screen and saw Maggie’s pale face and shaking hands as she described the massacre at Charlotte that morning. They had mentioned the President giving a formal address to the nation, but this would be the second time they pushed it back. What was taking so long? It’s not like it would be particularly difficult to get up there, say the boys were wrong to even own guns, apologize to the families of the victims, and leave.

She checked the time on her phone and realized she hadn’t gotten a cancellation message from the White House yet, but maybe they forgot? As Maggie announced the speech would be pushed back yet another hour, Kara made up her mind and texted Alex.

_Can you get me into the oval? I should still be on the schedule for tonight._

She waited with baited breath as the three blinking dots kept jumping on her screen, but when the reply came it was succinct and to the point:

_I can get you to Jess. The rest is on you._

Well, if she wasn’t skating on thin ice already with her most recent antics, what she had planned next might just cause her to be banned from the White House entirely.

-           -           -

In the oval office, Cat watched Lena pacing in front of the desk. She had removed her heels after the first five minutes, but Cat was beginning to worry about the President’s ability to actually get through tonight’s speech. It was always the shootings that had Cat worried about the President and her staff.

“You’ll have to say something, Lena.” James had been working all afternoon drafting and scrapping the emergency presidential address. “They need to hear your voice. They just need to know the world isn’t being torn apart at the seems.”

“You think there’s something I can get up there and say that’ll make sense of two guys walking into a packed church with the sole intent of shooting a bunch of people in a state that champions the right to own guns?”

The President was definitely still on the anger side of things and Cat could hear the steady elevation in her voice. She made a mental note to have Jess and some agents check in with the President tonight when the anger broke and the depression set in.

“I’m not saying you have to say the right thing,” James continued, “which doesn’t exist anyway, but you do have to say something from the heart. I think that’s why you’re rejecting everything I write.”

“Nobody wants to hear what’s in my heart right now, James.”

“I do.”

The three occupants turned to the new voice in the room to find Kara Danvers waiting patiently by Jess’ door to the oval office. Dammit, she had forgotten to cancel the blogger’s standing after-hours chess game with the President.

“Ms. Danvers, I’m sorry,” Cat began, “I meant to call about the change in schedule for this evening. I’m sure you can understand given this morning’s events.”

“I figured we wouldn’t be playing chess, but I came over because Maggie has delayed your address to the nation twice now.”

“I don’t understand why you’d think that gives you permission to—”

“Why won’t you condemn these guys?”

Cat took a physical step back when Kara interrupted her. Even James was shocked by the reporter’s sudden bravado. Apparently she had been quite emboldened by her meetings with the President.

“Don’t you have a crime bill in Congress right now?” Kara continued speaking only to Lena as if she had forgotten that James and Cat were even still in the room.

“You know, for being so anti-gun, I’m surprised you all haven’t fixed this problem for me by now.” Lena’s combative voice cut through the room like ice. “The NRA has about a million members, but if you bring a million and one people to the next meeting to call a vote it’d be done already.”

“Two boys—they were barely nineteen—bought guns legally, loaded them, drove from Raleigh to Charlotte, and until they opened fire in that church they had yet to ever commit a crime.” Kara had clearly done her research. Apparently she was a quick study when it came to arguing with the President. “I am so off-the-charts tired of the gun lobby tossing around words like ‘personal freedom’ and you won’t even call them out on it!”

“By all means, let’s hear your simple solution, Kara.” Lena walked towards the reporter and spoke to her with such malice in her voice the Cat was worried she’d have to call the secret service in to break up a fight. “It’s not like half the country wants to own guns. It’s not like there aren’t countless people telling me that five high school kids might’ve been spared if someone in the church had a gun. It’s not like I’ve never been shot at myself before!”

“Yeah, my sister took those bullets for you, Madam President.” Kara was pulling zero punches tonight, but Cat had to give her credit; she knew exactly where to hit Lena to do the most damage. “Gun’s aren’t about personal freedom, and they certainly have nothing to do with safety!”

The two women stood barely a foot apart in the middle of the oval office, both seething and trembling with rage. Even while being shorter than her, Lena still managed to make Kara seem like the smallest person in the room.

“It’s just that some people like guns.” Kara practically spat to the Commander in Chief.

“Yes, they do.” If possible the tension in the room grew tenfold as Lena let herself unleash all the pent-up rage from the day on the unsuspecting reporter.

Lena’s was a quite rage, something that slid into your brain like a lullaby and then poisoned you from within before you realized what was happening. It was the kind of rage than grabbed your heart in a vice and slowly watched you suffocate. Cat could practically see the moment Kara stopped breathing before her eyes widened in realization of what was about to happen.

“And I can understand that, if not for a brilliant surgical team and two tenths of a miracle, your sister would’ve died trying to save my life, but what I find more insidious than people liking guns is your misguided hatred. Your desire to ban all firearms doesn’t have anything to do with public safety, nor personal freedoms. You simply don’t like people who like guns, and, even though I agree with you, my biggest obstacle in succeeding always seems to be dealing with people like you.”

“People like me?” Kara asked and took a step back from the President. She briefly wondered if she had pulled another Clark and pushed too far.

“You don’t like people who like guns. You don’t like the people, Kara!” Lena’s voice cracked in her plea to get the reporter to understand. “Now, I may vehemently disagree with them on this particular issue, but they’re still my people. Do you get that? They’re still citizens of this nation that I’ve sworn to protect to the best of my ability whether they agree with me or not. I’m the one who has to walk the edge between what I know to be right and what the people want because I’m not some anointed queen.”

“But,” Kara was quiet now and Cat could see that the poison was quickly working its way through her mind. “If you know what’s right why can’t you just do it?”

“Because that’s not how a democracy works,” Lena said as she turned away and stepped into her shoes by the Resolute desk, “I think we can all agree that the last time someone assumed to know what was best for the entire country it ended quite poorly.”

Lena threw her blazer on over her dark blue dress and brushed past Kara, who was still rooted to the spot, on her way out the door. At the last moment she turned to deliver a final blow.

“Presidents cannot not rule; they can only serve.”

Kara’s eyes widened as she watched the President leave for the live address followed by her chief of staff and communications director. She remained standing in the oval staring at the empty doorway until Jess came in to usher her to the East Room. Only one thought was going through her mind the entire time—one crystal-clear realization that would undoubtedly keep her from sleeping for at least the next few days.

The President had her articles memorized.

-           -           -

As she stepped onto the brightly lit stage of the East Room, Lena gazed at the crowd of reporters in front of her. They had been waiting all afternoon for her to step up and say something meaningful, but as she read James’ speech aloud from the prompter she couldn’t help but think it was all wrong. This isn’t what they came here tonight to hear. A call to end gun violence isn’t something that would soothe and the comfort the families of the victims.

Halfway through the second paragraph she paused to take a breath, but stopped when she saw Kara’s stony face in the shadows of the left wing. As she resumed her speech without truly hearing she looked out at the blank faces of the reporters. This was exactly what Kara had been telling her in the oval. The families didn’t need her hollow words of right and wrong, and they certainly didn’t nee her using this as an opportunity to blast the nation for gun ownership. She stopped talking to look once more at Kara who had written the number 5 on front of her binder so it’d be visible to Lena as the blonde clutched it to her chest like armor. There were a few camera shutters that brought Lena back to the awkward silence in the room before her.

“My brother once told me, ‘the true measure of a nation’s strength is how they rise to face an unprovoked assault on their freedoms and way of life.’”

She took a deep breath and placed her hands on the edges of the podium before continuing.

“Forty people are dead tonight as a result of the shooting in Charlotte, and I’m sure you can get more information from Ms. Sawyer and the State Department, but tonight I want to talk about five members of the local high school track team. Two have passed while the rest remain in critical condition, and sadly one will be lucky to make it through the night. After hearing the gunshots at the church next to their practice field, these young men and women ran into the building to help get people out. They ran into the building.”

As she felt the words build fall into place within her mind, she noticed that the entire tone of the room had shifted. This was the stage she was used to, an audience that didn’t want to be placated or talk down to like petulant children. They wanted to know that their families and their children were going to be okay, that future generations wouldn’t have to go through this pain and loss. But they all knew better.

“The victims of tonight’s events are everyone to us; they’re our teachers, our students, our parents, and our children. Every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look to the next generation and are reminded that our capacity may well be limitless. It is to these students that we look tonight, these true American heroes. This is their time. They will do what is hard. They will achieve what is great. They will run past us and glance back wondering why we ever stopped.”

Lena observed the crowd once more, watching heads nodding along to her words. She saw the cameramen with their faces trained on her instead of their viewfinders. A reporter in the front row hadn’t noticed that her pen had fallen to the floor. Another had silent tears rolling down his face. Even James looked too moved to be mad at her.

“And it is our job, as guardians of that next generation, to help them on their way to greatness. This is a time for American heroes, and we must reach for the stars as one or we shall all succumb to the darkness in our hearts.”


	16. Just To Flirt

It was a light Thursday morning when Kara used her second favor from Jess to get an appointment with the President. Jess even let her into the oval office to wait for the President this time. Not that she had to wait long. As she had gotten to know Lena better, Kara realized that anything earlier than seven would be near suicidal and not a very productive meeting at all.

“Back again, Ms. Danvers?” Lena asked as she entered her office. “The walls have ears, you know, and with all these appointments people might start to talk.”

Kara was almost taken aback by the President’s wink, but she had been building up a fairly nice tolerance to Lena’s coy antics over the past few weeks.

“The Fraud prevention and employee amendment.” Kara said.

Lena let out a heavy sigh as she sat on ‘her’ side of the coffee table with two mugs of coffee.

“Kara, half of America’s workforce is employed by small businesses. That’s fewer than a hundred workers per owner.”

“I know what a small business is, Lena.”

“Then you should know that a lot of them fail; about one third. Not because of rent hikes, or big businesses squeezing them out, but because of…” Lena offered her hand to Kara indicating she should know the answer to this.

Kara rolled her eyes at the President’s cheeky mood this morning. “Employee fraud.”

“Bingo!” Lena tossed a chocolate kiss to the reporter for her coffee.

“I can’t believe I’m listening to a member of the one percent, and a Luthor no less, tell me the government should run background checks into peak business…” She paused with her cup in the air as if realizing something for the first time. “Now that I think about it, I can’t believe I’m listening to you at all, actually.”

“Not to let the facts interfere with a good story,” Lena powered on, “but numerous studies show that fraudulent employees are three times more likely to be married, four times more likely to be a man, sixteen times more likely to be in managerial positions or above, and five times more likely to have post graduate degrees. Not to mention that over eighty percent of violators are white."

Kara merely stared at Lena for a good couple of seconds, completely unimpressed. If Lena was going to be coquettish, then so was she.

“Wow.”

“What?” Lena said before taking a sip of her coffee.

“For a woman who’s trying to get a date, that was pretty rude.”

Kara had to hold in her laughter as Lena nearly spat her coffee all over the overnight memos.

“Hold on, these are office hours where I’m the President,” she said reaching for her napkin, “If I’d known I was working on that I would have had a whole different attitude.”

Kara was spared an immediate response—which was splendid considering she didn’t actually have one—as Jess walked in to the room.

“Madam President, your meeting with Goldman and Skinner of the Commerce Committee has been rescheduled for two o’clock.”

“Thank you, Jess.” Lena called as Jess left the room.

“You cancelled a meeting with the Commerce Committee to argue with me?” Kara blurted in her shock.

“Yes.” Lena answered with a confused look on her face. Like it was everyday the President blew off the Commerce Committee to low-key flirt with a reporter!

“But—why?”

“You made an appointment.” Lena shrugged.

“But, it’s the Com—!

“Kara,” Lena interrupted as she put down her portfolio to look her in the eye, “when you flirt with me, are you doing it for the spotlight feature?”

“No.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“To flirt with you.”

“I don’t believe you.” Lena said crossing her arms.

“I know,” Kara shrugged, “but that’s your problem.”

Kara fidgeted with the handle of her coffee mug while Lena watched her with careful eyes.

“Have dinner with me.” She finally said.

“What?” Kara asked completely taken aback.

Lena gathered her portfolio together in preparation to leave.

“Have dinner with Conner and I tonight.”

Kara rose with the President from the couch while trying to protest. “Madam President—”

“Come on, Kara. It’s fajita night, how presidential can that be?” Lena returned her own mug to the trolley and headed to Jess’ office.

“Seven-thirty!” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared. Kara stood suddenly alone in the oval office trying to figure out what just happened and how her bluff could’ve gone so… right? —No, definitely wrong… very wrong… She needed to talk to Alex, like, now.

-           -           -

“Well, this outta be good.” Alex called from her place on the practice mat after honest-to-goodness pile driving a grown man six inches taller than her. “What’d she do, try to kiss you or something?”

Kara forced a chuckle to appease her sister, which really seemed to get her attention.

“Oh my god, she didn’t!”

“No, of course not!” Kara was quick to correct. “She, uh… she asked me to dinner, well, more like ordered me to dinner, but not really, and—”

Kara was interrupted by Alex’s ruckus laughter.

“Alex, this is serious!” Kara pleaded.

“Yeah, okay.” Alex said as she motioned for the next combatant to try their luck.

“I can’t go to dinner with her,” Kara said, then in a whisper added, “and her son.”

“Whoa, there, keep your hands up, scooter,” Alex said to her opponent. A good roundhouse kick to the face gave her a few minutes to respond to Kara. “Unless you’ve suddenly forgotten to eat, you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not going.” She deadpanned.

“Why not?” Alex asked as the man returned to tackle her from behind. Kara watched as her sister put up a half-baked attempt at getting out of his bind.

“It’s not going to work.” Kara mumbled hoping Alex wouldn’t catch it.

Her sister made short work of the man by flipping him over her hip onto the mat.

“What, exactly, isn’t going to work?” she asked. No such luck, apparently.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“You and Lena?”

“Yes!” Kara whispered in a panic as she glanced about the gym.

“Kara, this is the Secret Service gym, we’re trained to be discrete.” Alex scoffed as she walked off the mat to get a drink by her sister. “Why is it not going to work?”

“Because! She's, well, you know,” Kara flailed her arms trying to telepathically communicate her mental struggle, “and I’m...me.”

“I think I know what you’re saying, but I don’t think the problem is that you’re a reporter and she’s—for lack of a better term—your subject matter.” Alex explained as she toweled off her cropped hair. “I think the problem is that you’re stupid.”

Kara just stared open-mouthed at her sister for a bit before responding. “Well, thanks Alex. That really picked me right up.”

“Sure thing.” Alex slapped her on the back so hard she nearly toppled over. “Now listen up because I’m only going to say this the one time. There are guys on our team whose sole job is sorting through the mail. Ten thousand marriage proposals, twenty thousand death threats, and, on a good day, there’s only fifty of us guarding her at any given moment.”

Kara stared at her shoes as she processed Alex’s information, but was forced to look at her sweaty sister’s face when Alex put both hands on her shoulders.

“Everyone wants to get close. Everyone wants something from her. And, I’m saying this with some personal experience; life as a Luthor isn’t exactly a walk in the park if you know what I mean.”

Kara nodded and Alex removed her hands to get another drink of water. She definitely understood what Alex meant from her emails about Lillian back when she was a regular security guard at L-Corp.

“If it was me, I’d make sure I was one of the few people in her life who was completely hassle-free.” Alex winked at her, “But that’s just me.”

Alex walked back to the practice mat with a cocky stride and called a couple of agents over to the mat to by name. Kara wasn’t really watching though, she was staring at the abandoned water bottle wondering how she was possibly going to manage being hassle-free when she’d already nearly ruined Lena’s first presidential campaign.


	17. Fajita Night

Kara carefully counted each step as the secret service agent led her up to the second floor of the White House. She remembered this room from the reception before the state dinner, but it seemed infinitely larger with only one person. The agent remained by the open doorway and she briefly wondered if he knew why she was here in the first place. Discretion is what Alex had said, but did that mean they knew everything and kept their mouths shut or knew nothing and never asked? Maybe it was—

Her thoughts immediately paused when she caught sight of a small boy peaking his head out of the side doorway. He glanced about the room, but quickly disappeared behind the door again when they locked eyes. The quiet giggle surprised her.

“Hello?” she called to the open door and was rewarded with more giggling before he gathered enough courage to fully walk around the door.

“Hi.” He said with a brilliant smile and more embarrassed laughter.

Kara didn’t quite know what she had been expecting when Lena invited her to dinner with her son, but this image was certainly not it. I mean, sure, he had on the standard kid’s tennis shoes and jeans, but the open flannel over a ‘Young Buck’ henley was a little off-putting. This had to be the best-dressed kid she had ever seen. The last straw for Kara was the slight mohawk in his hair—really, what kind of six year old styles their hair?

“You wouldn’t be Conner, now, would you?”

“Are you Ms. Danvers?” he asked and put his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, but most people just call me Kara.” She said with a smile.

“Mommy calls you Kara.” He stuck out his hips turned away like he was listening for something, or someone.

“Hmm, so she talks about me?” She just had to joke with him; he was too adorable not to mess with.

“Mayyyyyyybe.” His bashful smile simply expanded and his cheeks burned from embarrassment. “Mommy told me to stay in my room, but I knew you were out here ‘cause I could hear you.”

“Well, you’d better go back to your room before she gets mad at us.”

“She’s on the phone.” He made a show of looking at his bedroom door and behind Kara to watch the guard all the same.

“That’s not very nice of her,” Kara gasped in mock outrage, “and here I thought we were supposed to have fajitas.”

“I love fajitas.” He told her in all seriousness.

“How about this,” Kara knelt down to his level, “you go tell your mommy that it’s time for dinner, and I promise not to tell her you broke the rules.”

“Deal!” he said and stuck out his hand so they could shake on it.

He stealthily walked back to the door and shut it quietly behind him. Kara couldn’t hold in her laughter when she heard the telltale signs of little feet running across the room and doors opening and slamming in his wake. This was certainly going to be an eventful dinner.

Maybe five minutes after Conner went tearing through the residences, Lena and Conner entered from the main doorway behind her and Kara definitely forgot how to breathe for a few seconds. Mike had sent her a text to dress casually, but she forgot to connect the dots and prepare herself for the image of Lena Luthor in jeans and a loose-fitting plaid shirt. This was stupid, she’d seen Lena dressed to impress for the state dinner, and she normally looked immaculate in her business attire, but there was definitely something… more about Lena in her casual wear.

“Apparently,” Lena began playfully, “I have strict orders to get dinner started now.”

She carefully bumped her leg into Conner’s shoulder and he dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“Please ignore my son, he’s always like this.” She continued with a laugh of her own.

“I was actually thinking that I missed the plaid memo,” Kara joked right back.

“We match,” Conner spoke up.

“You both look amazing.”

“What do you say, sweetie?” Lena prompted.

“Thank you, Kara.”

“Hmm,” Lena began, “and just how do you know this is Kara Danvers.”

Conner did his level best not to smile, but it just made him look like he swallowed a lemon, as he hid behind his hands.

“I was talking rather loudly to the secret service agent on my way up here,” Kara bluffed, “He must’ve heard me talking. You know how loud I can get when I’m nervous.”

Lena looked between the two of them with her mouth slightly open in mock outrage.

“Oh, no, no, no, this right here?” she said gesturing between Kara and Conner, “This little partnership you two managed to concoct in the five minutes I was on the phone needs to end right now.”

“I can’t possibly imagine what you’re talking about.” Kara said and adjusted her glasses.

“Yeah, mommy, you’re a silly goose,” Conner patted her hip in the most patronizing manner and Kara almost burst out laughing.

“Let’s get fajita night started then.” Lena said as Conner jogged out of the room.

“Silly goose,” Kara said as she bumped her shoulder into Lena’s who burst into laughter.

Although they were eating in the formal dining room, Kara could tell that there were no stewards or chefs involved in tonight’s meal. At the very least, the superhero dining set was a dead give away.

“I love your plates, Conner,” Kara said.

“Thank you!”

“He loves comics and superheroes,” Lena explained, “He’s gotten into the habit of assigning alter egos to people.”

“I’m assuming by this spread that you’re Wonder Woman?” Kara asked.

“Mommy is always Wonder Woman.” Conner piped up. “Kara, you sit here.”

“Excuse me,” Lena chided, “but where have your manners disappeared to?”

“Kara, would you like to sit next to me, please?”

“I’d love to.” Kara said as she sat down at the Superman plate. Now that was certainly an odd choice for her.

They helped themselves to whatever they wanted from the table. Lena only helped Conner with the hot skillet, but other than that, Kara was very impressed with the boy’s manners and independent nature. If he wasn’t in a booster seat, she might’ve thought he was eight or nine.

“So, Conner,” Kara asked, “how are you liking school?”

“S’okay.” He shrugged. “Jason is nice.”

“Jason is his class buddy for third grade,” Lena explained. Wait, third grade?

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“At the school or at home?” he asked looking every bit like a confused puppy.

“You have classes at home, too?” Kara clarified.

“Yeah, I like those a lot better than the ones at school, but mommy says I need to be with other kids.”

“Now I’m the bad guy,” Lena groaned.

“But I’m still waiting for your favorite subject,” Kara pressed.

Conner took a moment to think carefully about his answer before responding.

“Physics.”

“Physics.” Kara repeated with wide eyes as Conner nodded his head vigorously.

“We build things and paint and it’s really fun.”

“In physics?” Kara was clearly missing something, but luckily Lena took the time to explain.

“There’s a graduate student from the art institute who’s studying fractal images that stops by every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. He teaches Conner basic physics while they make a mess of the study.” Even Conner had the decency to look a bit ashamed of his crazy paint splatters all over the walls.

“That’s sounds like a lot of fun, actually.”

“We made a pendulum once!” Conner was eager to be the center of attention yet again. “It was so cool and it painted these perfectly flat circles and I made mommy a flower picture.”

“Very cool.” Kara said.

The rest of the dinner went by in much the same way and Kara was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to talk with the two Luthors. While Lena cleared the table, Conner insisted on giving Kara a tour of his room. She expected a superhero themed and messy room of a typical boy, but found herself standing in a well-organized room tastefully decorated in shades of black and red. Right, son of Lena Luthor, of course the kid was going to be tidy and chic. Speaking of…

“Conner," Lena called from the door, "I’m gonna walk Kara back down, so say your goodbyes.”

“Night, Kara. You should come back again.” That last part was undeniably directed at his mother.

“Good night, Conner.” Kara said with a chuckle. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

Conner held out his hand to shake like a grown up and Kara had to keep her laugh in check.

“Pajamas when I get back or we’re not watching the movie.” Lena warned as they left his room. Kara could hear the loud groan even with the door closed.

They wandered slowly back through the central hallway to the main staircase.

“He’s wonderful.” Kara said, breaking the silence.

Lena smirked, “He’s quite the handful.”

“Did he…design his own room?”

“Yes,” Lena groaned, “and he demanded to pick out outfits for the evening.” She pulled at the black and red checked flannel as if proving her point.

“You really do look great, but that also explains why half your wardrobe is black and red.”

Lena laughed at her own ridiculousness. “I can’t believe I raised a fashionista.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Kara didn’t even bother trying to contain her own laughter. “He’s exactly like you, Lena—except that shirt, that screams Alex.”

“Your sister does have a habit of taking him shopping for clothes with particularly lewd phrases on them.”

"I thought the 'Daddy' nickname was a joke, but he's serious, isn't he?"

Lena laughed out loud at Kara's confusion. "Yes, he was maybe two. Alex was on Conner detail and they were playing with some trucks when he stopped and said, 'daddy, I'm hungry.' I was too stunned to move."

Kara watched as the President dissolved into a fit of giggles like her son while reliving the memory.

"And then your sister turned to him as said, 'Hi, hungry, I'm dad.' And she's been Daddy ever sense. Official code name with the secret service and everything."

“Only my sister would end up with that nickname... 'Agent Daddy'"

The two women shared a smile imagining Alex in her Secret Service suit taking Conner to school on Father's Day..

"What about his hair?” Kara asked.

“Jess styled it. She lives down the hall with her husband.” Lena pointed across the way before they descended the staircase. “You should’ve seen him running around this evening trying to make sure everything was just right.”

“Well, he succeeded because I had a great time.”

“I’m glad,” Lena said with a genuine smile. “We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

Kara presented a smile of her own before turning to the secret service agent at the base of the staircase. Seeing Lena Luthor in her comfort zone was definitely a completely different beast than dealing with the President of the United States. Kara nearly forgot she was even in the White House until she passed through security on her way out.


	18. Siobhan Smythe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics = Arabic

The weekend before the State of the Union address was always a difficult time for Lena. Not only was she in the process of memorizing an hour-long speech while running the country, but it technically hadn’t even been written yet. On top of all that, she now had to deal with mothering one of the highest-ranking members of her armed forces. What she wouldn’t give to be able to simply ground her joint chiefs for a week. Maybe even sit them in time out. She nearly laughed out loud at the image of Sec-Nav sitting next to Conner on the 1926 antique chaise in the Treaty Room.

Currently the President was lounging on one of the couches in the oval office while her senior staff loitered around listening to Cat’s briefing on how the CIA royally fucked up this morning.

“The Lebanese have about ten thousand troops at the northern border, and maybe five thousand troops along the eastern front for defense.”

“All this happened without the CIA knowing about it?” Maggie asked.

“I’ve already dealt with them.” Lena said.

“The United Nations Security Council is meeting right now to try and affect a cease-fire.” Cat continued as if she had never been interrupted.

“Yes, because that’s going to work.” James scoffed from his place by the door. The poor guy was desperately trying to work on the State of the Union speech.

Maggie was still hung up on the logistics. “How in the hell did they miss fifty thousand armed people straight up walking across a fucking dessert?”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much,” Lena said without moving her eyes from her stack of memos. “They have an excellent picture of them now.”

“Wouldn’t the general idea be to spot them before they crossed the border?” Maggie continued, “Or, I don’t know, maybe while they were gathering under the cover of absolutely nothing in the desert?”

“Best laid plans, right?” Lena said. “I’m so glad we never decided to cut military funding. Just think of all the valuable data we would’ve been missing.”

James decided his best bet of getting sensible information was from Cat seeing as the President was too far down the path of sarcasm.

“Can we assess the command and control situation?”

“Now this is the truly terrifying part.” Lena called out to the room.

“Oh, this ought to be good.” Maggie hung her head in her hands.

“This is a direct quote from the Department of Defense briefing packet,” Cat began while pulling out a spiral bound report. “‘At various times, both countries have displayed an incoherent military system. As such, you cannot predict the outcome of a crisis, nor who would be in charge.’”

“Well, that sounds promising.” James managed after the blood drained from his face.

“There’s a Syrian expert I want to bring in,” Lena said, tapping her fingers on the edge of her portfolio and staring into space, “we went to high school together.”

“No.” Cat cut in and sat in her armchair.

“I think you two will love her.” Lena gestured to Maggie and James who glanced at each other with concern.

“Of course they will.” Cat said. “She’s bat-shit insane just like them.”

“She’s stimulating,” Lena said with a beaming smile.

“That’s quite the interesting choice of words.” Cat drawled with a pointed look at Lena—who completely ignored her.

“Well, now I’m curious.” Maggie said with a smirk. “Who is she?”

“How do you know it’s a she?” James called from the back of the room. All three women turned to look at him; the man was about as oblivious as a wooden post. Maggie couldn’t keep her laugh contained and Lena decided to return to the topic at hand.

“Siobhan Smythe. Former ambassador to Damascus from the An Roinn Gnóthaí Eachtracha agus Trádála.”

“That…that sounds Gaelic,” Maggie was far too interested in this, and her predatory smile was doing nothing to ease Lena’s concern.

“A friend from high school as in your Irish boarding school?” James asked and Lena nodded. “Okay, let’s get her down here. Where is she now?”

“I’m betting the psych ward of a Belfast prison.” Cat said holding her forehead in her hand. This was the dumbest idea the President had conjured in a very ling time. Well…since she hired that blogger for the Spotlight feature at the least.

“She’s just opinionated, Cat.” Lena said.

“Are you really going to set that woman loose in the White House and surround her with beautiful women and free alcohol?” Cat asked in all seriousness.

“Wait, what?” That had certainly caught James’ attention.

“I can’t do anything about the women, but I’m sure we can restrict her alcohol intake.”

“What about you?” Cat pressed. “Can you restrain yourself?”

“Cat, I’m offended you think so little of me.” Lena said looking appalled. “Not that it matters. I’ve always been immune to her various charms.”

“Yes, I believe you simply adopted them as your own,” Cat shot back.

“Hello,” Maggie waved from the opposite couch, “What the hell is going on? Is Ms. Smythe an old flame or something?”

“Not for lack of trying on her part.” Lena responded with a coy smile.

“And how do you expect to introduce Siobhan to your Ms. Danvers?” Cat’s words were dripping in sarcasm, but at least she won the bet in managing to make the President stop mid-step with the dumbest expression of sucking on a lemon.

“Oh, now I really want to see this.” Maggie said with a grin so big it looked like her face might split in half.

“Get her on a plane, please.” Lena said once she had snapped out of it. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

-           -           -

“Jess…”

“Kara, I really don’t think today is a good time.” Jess said standing from her desk to grab a pile of files from the cabinet.

“Yeah, I figured.” Kara adjusted her glasses out of nervousness, but Jess must’ve seen it because she decided to throw her a bone.

“She might be able to walk and talk… let me find out where her next meeting is.”

“I owe you one,” Kara beamed at the secretary.

“You owe me plenty, but you can start paying me back right now.”

“Anything!” Kara said a bit to hastily. Should’ve known she was about to regret this.

“I’ll set you up for a walk and talk, on the condition that you ask the President out to dinner.” She said with a sly smile.

“…What?” Kara breathed out and frantically looked around the room.

“Ask the President to have dinner again, and I’ll have Richard here take you right to Lena.”

“Jess!” Kara’s eyes were wild now. “You can’t just say things like that in public!” she whispered.

“Kara, look at me. This isn’t public, this is the White House.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Also, it’s very important to me that you have dinner with the first family again sooner rather than later.”

Now that was some new information that threw Kara for a loop.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

Jess slammed another stack of files on her desk with quite a bit more force than necessary and Kara briefly wondered if the desk would be able to withstand the secretary’s frustration.

“The President told her son she wouldn’t be asking you over to dinner again until your story was published and now we’re all living in hell.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Conner has refused to eat dinner with anyone, his room is immaculate—which seems like a good thing, but it’s really not, he’s slept in his bed every single night…”

Jess had completely lost it by now and was in a full Kara Danvers style rant with no end in sight. If there was any hope of Kara still making this walk and talk, she’d have to get to the point sooner rather than later.

“The worst part is that he’s banished me from his room and I miss my godson!”

“So I ask the President out to dinner, you get back on Conner’s good side, and I get five minutes to talk?”

“Yes,” Jess said with a firm nod, “and hopefully dinner with the first family again.”

“Fine.”

“What?” Jess’ head snapped up from her paperwork.

“I’ll do it.”

“That was a bit unexpected,” she said with a knowing look in her eye, but nevertheless she kept her word and motioned for Richard to take Kara to the President.

“If anyone asks, I put up a good fight.” Kara insisted and was met with only Jess’ laughter as she followed the secret service agent as he sped through the hallway.

Maybe three turns later and she saw Lena striding down the hall and quickly fell into pace beside the President.

“Kara, what a lovely surprise,” Lena said with a soft smile, “and here I though you’d been avoiding me since yesterday’s breakfast appointment.”

“I figured you had your hands full, but I have a couple questions for you, and keep in mind there’s a lot riding on your answers.”

“Oh yeah?” Lena smirked at Kara’s sudden bravado. “Like what?”

Kara made a show of thinking about it before answering “…How about dinner?”

“I’d love to, thanks for asking.” Lena said with a playful nudge.

“Nope,” Kara pointed a finger at the President, “only if you answer my questions.”

“Fire away!”

“Is Vice President Luthor on the phone with the President of Lebanon?”

“Yes, they were roommates in grad school. He’s calling to catch up.”

She knew it! Hah, Maggie, in your face! “And you’re heading to his office now?”

“In a little bit, why?” Lena asked, Kara could tell she had no idea what was going on.

“Can I sit in on that phone call?”

Lena didn’t even bother trying to hide her ruckus laughter. “Absolutely not. You do not have code word clearance, and I don’t mean to sound insulting, but you’re a reporter, Kara.”

“I thought you said it was just a friendly phone call?” Kara could see the moment Lena pieced it all together and she realized Kara’s true motives.

“…It is.” She gazed at Kara’s not-so-subtle smirk out of the corner of her eye. “That was very clever.”

“I learn from the best. Besides, you’re not very good at this covert stuff.” Kara tucked a stray lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear before continuing. Is there really a good way of blackmailing the leader of the free world?

“I now have enough to go on record with a story about the Vice President calling an old friend to try and solve this problem under the table instead of using diplomacy, but I don’t want to publish that story.”

“You don’t?” Lena asked with a skeptical brow.

“No, because I want to be in the room.” Lena rolled her eyes at her insistence. “I’m not going to record what was said, and I’m not going to publish anything! I just want to see how the Luthor siblings interact when they’re forced to run the world together.”

“Like that’s ever going to happen.” Lena scoffed.

“You understand you’re trying to get a date out of this, right?”

“I haven’t forgotten, dear.”

They had reached the door of the President’s next meeting, but remained standing outside with barely a foot of tension between them.

“Here’s a thought,” Lena continued, “since I don’t agree with you, how about you come over for dinner tonight and convince me otherwise.”

“Fine,” Kara sighed, “You understand this is a business dinner, not a fling or a date, right?

“I understand completely.” She said the picture of innocence.

“I’m not going to be painted as the President’s Mistress.” Kara mumbled as she turned and started walking down the hall.

“If it’s a business dinner you should bring your notebook.” Lena called after her. She didn’t need to see the President’s face to know she was sporting a Cheshire grin.

“Kara, wait!” she called, “you don’t happen to speak Arabic, do you?”

“Uh…no?”

“You can sit in on the phone call, but you’ll sit next to Maggie in the corner and try not to laugh.”

The last thing she needed was a reporter knowing the dirty details of her time in the Levant, no matter how cute that reporter happened to be. She walked over to the translator and dismissed him only to pick up the satellite headset herself before sitting on the edge of Lex’s desk. She caught Kara gulp out of the corner of her eye when she crossed her legs—dammit! Siobhan had only been in the building for a few hours and she was already relearning bad habits.

“ _Maruf, this is Lena Luthor_ ,” She called into the phone and waited as the president calmed down.

“ _Little Lena?_ ” Lex gave an eye roll at the old nickname.

“ _Maruf, I don’t mind translating, but I will not be shouted at like that and you know it so knock it off._ ”

“I’m sorry.” He said switching back to English.

“Lex called you because he thought you were friends. I don’t know about you, but I don’t yell at my friends like that.”

“It was not my intention, Ms. President.”

Lena took a good look at Kara before switching back into Arabic. “ _We’re gonna try this again, but if you start yelling, I’ll make sure everyone in the world knows you walked across campus in nothing but your socks._ ”

“ _You were the one who stole my clothes in the first place!_ ”

“ _That’s what happens when you piss me off, Mari._ ”

Maruf gave a heavy sigh before turning his attention back to the Vice President. “What do you want, Lex?”

Lex spoke directly to the phone, but periodically looked up to hear Lena translating his words. “We need you to stand down your forces on the border, Maruf. That’s the only way this is going to stop and you know it. It’s crucial you pullback before this conflict takes another escalating step forward.”

‘What guarantee do I have that President Zaheer will do the same?’

“None.”

Maruf’s laughter came through the speaker, and Lena locked eyes with her brother encouraging him to continue before Mari resorted to name-calling again.

“We’re going to have to trust each other a little, Mari. I’ll make sure President Zaheer doesn’t do anything drastic without you knowing about it, but you’re going to have to trust us—Lena and I. And you’re going to have to trust Zaheer.”

Everyone in the room waited with baited breath as the silence stretched on. Finally Maruf gave another sigh and threw in the towel.

‘I’m going to call President Zaheer, but I want you to stay on the line.’ Maruf said and began telling his own staffers to get the President of Syria on the phone.

Lena took this opportunity to have some fun with her old friend. She couldn’t even imagine the stress he was under right now. “ _How is it that, in all his visits, my brother has never managed to pick up Arabic?_ ”

“You’d think after learning Hebrew, Arabic would be easy,” he chuckled, “ _I think he only learned the language because he fancied the beautiful women of Israel._ ”

“ _Can’t say I blame him!_ ” They both shared a good laugh at that. She and Siobhan went to visit her brother at grad school during the summer of their junior year and the stories have forever lived in infamy.

“ _You two about done yet?_ ” Lex asked. He hated being the only one out of the loop.

“Sorry.” Lena and Maruf said in tandem, which only caused them to laugh more.

Maruf sobered up immediately and announced that the call was being patched through and Lena went back to translating his message to Syria.

“Thank you, Mari.” Lex said.

“We’ll see,” Maruf said in English through the speaker.

“Thank you, Mari,” Lena called.

They said their goodbyes and Lena put down the headset before looking to her brother. They always feared a resurgence of conflict in the Levant, but with their friend in the middle of the first hiccup they couldn’t just stand by and watch from half a world away.

“Is Smythe working on a solution for Syria?” Lex asked.

“God, I hope so.” Lena said. It was only then that she remembered Kara and Maggie were in on their phone call. Maggie didn’t seemed phased by the discussion, after all she was used to the siblings and their frequent diplomatic phone conversations. Kara was an entirely different story. There was a look in her eye that might’ve worried Lena on any other day, a sort of predatory glint that made Lena feel as if she were the next item on the menu. Apparently there was some heat under that layer of sunny charm after all.

-           -           -          

The three women walked back to the oval office in companionable conversation. Lena worried she might’ve pushed Kara too far in some way with that phone conversation, maybe it was just the legs thing? No, she was definitely taken aback, but not legitimately licking her lips like at the end of that phone call. The President chose to steer the conversation to a safe, neutral territory of Maggie and Alex’s weekend plans before their inevitable meeting with Siobhan. But when the time came, as always, no safety net could’ve saved them from the blunt force trauma of Ms. Smythe.

“Everyone, I want you to meet Siobhan Smythe.” She announced as the woman of the hour sauntered into the oval office.

“Hello, hello.” Maggie was the first to fall under her notice. “Lena, have I mentioned how truly wonderful your staff is?”

“Only about seven times.” Cat muttered under her breath.

“Siobhan, this is the reporter I was telling you about.” Lena desperately tried to keep the conversation moving in the hopes that Siobhan would cut to the chase and not focus on her dinner date for the night. “Ms. Danvers, this is a good friend of mine from school—”

“Siobhan Smythe.” She practically breathed into Kara’s neck as they met for a brush of the cheek.

“N-nice to meet you.” Kara managed while her eyes darted quickly between the two brunettes.

“Believe me, the pleasure is all mine.” Siobhan drawled as she slipped between Kara and Lena to reach the dry bar.

“Is she drunk?” Kara whispered to her.

“Very.” Lena responded. This was definitely not good. Take that back, it was great for them because it meant that the negotiations with Syria had gone swimmingly. But it was terrible for Lena because she knew from experience that Siobhan’s flirtatious nature was only amplified by alcohol.

“Lena, she is absolutely gorgeous, and with a brain to match, I’m sure.” Siobhan said after tucking the blonde’s hair behind her ear and tracing the length of her arm on her way to the couch. Kara shuddered involuntarily and Lena felt her patience threshold diminish to absolute zero. “A magnificent selection for the piece, darling.”

“How were your meetings, Siobhan?” She asked to keep things moving, preferably away from the topic of Kara.

“Well, after talking at length with your joint chiefs—which, by the way, I have to say that you could’ve made better choices in that regard, all old angry men but that one, and she was married!”

“Siobhan.”

“Buy them off. Use the carrot and stick method. Pick some leader, make them particularly wealthy, then threaten to take it all away.”

“We can’t do that!” Cat exclaimed.

“Yes, thank you for clearing that up. Having been educated at Galway and Trinity, I am, as you know, exceedingly stupid.”

This meeting must’ve set a personal record for the sheer number of times they’ve gone completely off the rails.

“What would Syria even want?” Lena asked.

Siobhan took another large sip of her scotch before responding, “Infrastructure. They see Israel’s success, and Lebanon was following suit with their trade agreements. Syria wants a piece of that pie.”

“Why would we help them?” Cat asked from the sidelines.

“It’s the price you pay for avoiding a war halfway around the world.” She crossed her legs and narrowed her predatory glance at Lena for at least the thousandth time in their many years together. Too bad Lena would always be the one she couldn’t catch.

“And you’re still close to President Zaheer?” Lena asked with a raised brow.

“Yes,” she said with a sigh having acquiesced to yet another dismissal by Lena.

“He’ll go for this?”

“If it’s handled right.” Siobhan turned her smirk back to her scotch, clearly thinking about her impending trip to Syria.

“I can’t believe we’re actually going to offer a trade incentive to them after they nearly started a war.” Cat said shaking her head.

Lena simply nodded her consent to the proposal and Cat quickly left the room to get started. It was just the four of them now; Maggie trying to decide if she should stay and attempt to protect Kara from the sirens in the room, and Lena perilously toeing the line between resuming her bad habits and throttling her best friend for so blatantly attempting to seduce her date.

“May I inquire, Madam President—”

Lena tried to cut her off right then and there, but she honestly should’ve known better by now.

“You may absolutely not.”

“—The first thing that attracted you to the lovely Ms. Danvers, was it her magnificent buttocks?”

“What?!” Kara squeaked.

“Okay, well, that was fun while it lasted.” Lena said and promptly stole Siobhan’s drink right out of her hand.

“Or perhaps her absolutely divine musculature—look at those biceps!” Siobhan continued while giving Kara the once-over.

“Uh… thanks?” The reporter said. Lena downed the rest of the scotch in Siobhan’s glass before continuing.

“You know, Siobhan, there are places in this world where it’s considered rude to comment so boldly on another’s physical attributes.”

“Thank god we don’t live there!” She cried and stood up to stretch. “Well, it was lovely meeting your debonair lady, but I’m on a plane to visit Zaheer in an hour… still many things to settle.”

“Good luck.” Lena said and pulled her friend into a hug.

“As I always say, ‘may the gods grant me health and hope; I’ll steal the rest!’” She then proceeded to walk out the door and right into Jess’ filing cabinet.

Luckily Mike was there to chaperone her journey to the airport taxi. Unluckily for him, there was no one around to soften the force of Siobhan at her most provocative state. It was quite possibly the most uncomfortable 300-yard walk of his entire life.


	19. The Vermeil Room

For the second time that month, Kara found herself escorted by the secret service to the Presidential residences. Instead of awkwardly standing in the middle of the bright yellow room, she walked over to Connor’s adjoining door and gave a firm knock. She didn’t have to wait long before the boy cracked the door just far enough to catch a glimpse of her.

“Kara!” He shouted and flung the door open before running to hug her legs.

“Hey, how was your day?” she asked as he let go and dragged her back to his room.

“Good,” he said and ran over to his bed to grab a beanie, “Daddy got me a new shirt, do you like it?”

Kara gently turned him around so she could read the faded lettering on the over-sized grey shirt. ‘Mr. Steal Your Girl’ ran down the side in bold letters. The president was definitely going to kill her sister someday.

“I think it’s cute, and I’m sure your mother will love it.” Kara smiled and Conner laughed at her subtle joke.

“She’s in a meeting.” He pouted.

“She always is, isn’t she?” Kara tapped her forehead in thought for a moment. “We should start getting extra dessert whenever she’s late to dinner, don’t you think?”

“Yeah!” he called and gave her a high five. “It’s not fair because she’s not even meeting with people.”

The pair began making their way to the family dining room as Conner took the opportunity to complain to someone new.

“What’s she doing then?”

“Hiding.” That was certainly a different answer than what she was expecting.

“Hiding from us?”

“From everyone.” Conner took his time picking out superhero plates and glasses for them to set the table with. “She’s in the sitting room looking at maps and stuff.”

“Hmm, the Sit-Room?”

“Yeah.” Now she understood. Something must’ve happened with Lebanon and Syria for Lena to be called to the situation room this late in the day.

“Let’s get this potato bar started!” Lena called as she finally entered the room looking completely exhausted.

“Kara says we get extra sweets because you were late.” Conner wasted no time in throwing his new friend under the bus.

“Is that so?” Lena smirked at her.

“It’s only fair.” She scoffed and continued setting the dishes and fixings on the table.

“I see we all got the black and white memo this time.” She joked. Both women were sporting some form of stripes while Conner pulled up his baggy shirt to show off his striped belt.

“Mommy, look!” he said and held out his shirt so Lena could ready the message.

“Is that new?” she asked with skepticism, “I have no memory of buying such a thing.”

Conner gave a particularly devilish smile while responding, “Daddy bought it.”

“Of course she did.” Lena chuckled and continued preparing Conner’s potato. “In that case, I love it.”

The conversation flowed easily from one topic to another and Kara was reminded just how warm it felt being in the same room as the Luthors. They never once seemed to be the hoity-toity elitists she feared only a short while ago. And why she thought Lena would be as pro-military as her opponents claimed was completely beyond her at this point.

“He’s getting so big.” Lena commented from her place on the couch in Conner’s room. They had retired there after dinner to eat their ice cream and watch one of the boy’s favorite TV shows, but Conner had passed out shortly after his last spoonful. He was now snuggled into the tiny space between the two women with his head resting in Lena’s lap.

“He’s really wonderful, Lena.” Kara said with a genuine smile. The president continued stroking her son’s hair as Kara remembered what Conner said about the situation room before dinner.

“Was everything all right in Syria?” she asked.

Lena hummed trying to place what Kara was talking about. “Oh, yeah, everything is fine there. But there’s always a crisis somewhere.”

“I only ask because Conner mentioned you were late because you were in the ‘sitting’ room looking at maps.”

They shared a quiet laugh at the boy’s antics before Lena barely managed to carry Conner over to his bed for the night.

“Would you care for a drink?” she asked.

“I’d love one, thanks.”

Kara followed her down past the kitchen and dining rooms to the first floor museum portion of the White House. Although she had been running around the West Wing of the building with hundreds of interns and reporters for a month now, she had never actually been in the White House proper aside from her various dinner dates. At this hour the hallways had an intimacy about them that could only be caused by the soft glow of the lights and the void of people. They were both nursing mugs of warm cocoa as they walked about the ground floor discussing various points in the day without actually saying anything at all.

“One of my advisors, Jethro, called me in tonight because he thought there was some odd troop movement off the coast of Taiwan.”

“We have soldiers in Taiwan?” Kara asked.

“Just instructors sent to train some of their guys.” Lena began looking through the doorways of each room they passed trying to find something or someone. “Here it is.”

Kara followed her into a beautiful sitting room lined with shelves and filled to the brim with gold vases and decretive serving platters. In the evening light of the ten-armed glass chandelier seemed to give the room an effervescent glow.

“This is one of my favorite rooms,” Lena said, “and it’s not because everything’s shiny.”

“The Vermeil Room.” Kara remembered from her first day at the White House. She had grabbed a brochure to leaf through as she was waiting for Rhea to finish writing her latest abstract. “Silver covered in gold.”

“I like the metaphor. It’s not what it appears to be, but it’s not disappointing either.”

“You’re not worried about the reputation?” Kara asked as she took a turn about the room. “Some people see it as a symbol of a bloody and tyrannical oppression of its own people after Louis the 15th melted them down to pay for his civil wars.”

Lena remained standing by one of the displays featuring a gorgeous centerpiece basin being held aloft by three Greek beauties. “Many craftsmen were blinded by mercury while making them. Seems like a waste to melt it down for raw materials.”

“It’s part of our history.”

Lena nodded at her words, “we can’t lock it in the basement or brush it with a new coat of paint. We have to own it.”

Kara returned to stand by her side with her face bathed in the soft glow of moonlight. The vision wasn’t lost on Lena as she gazed at the woman’s profile. Her rational brain told her the crystalized beams of light were nothing more than refractions caused by the glass of the chandelier, but no matter the reason, she was simply…

“Beautiful.” She breathed barely above a whisper.

“Madam President,” Kara said as she turned away to hide her burning cheeks behind a lock of hair, “have you ever noticed the filigree on the handle of the—”

“Kara, do you ever think there’ll be a time where you don’t think of me as the President?” she asked, which caused Kara to turn back towards her voice. They were barely a foot apart as Lena gazed into the bright blue eyes before her.

“It’s not a state of mind—you are the President.” Kara looked into her cocoa mug to avoid Lena’s eyes. “And when I’m with you, I’ll always be no one of consequence… just Kara.”

She reached up to tuck the unruly blonde strand back and trace the outline of her cheek.

“I happen to like ‘just Kara.’” As the woman bent her head down to rest against Lena’s brow.

“You think this is a good idea?” Kara breathed.

“I no longer care.”

Lena could practically feel the blonde’s neck quiver as she forced herself to breathe. She moved her hand along the back of her neck and gently pulled Kara towards her. All of her senses were on high alert. She could feel the warmth of the cocoa in her hand, the rough texture of the dress, and Kara’s hand trembling on her elbow. She glanced up once to see Kara lick her lips and then the world melted away completely as their lips met.

“Madam President?”

Kara and Lena broke apart as if they had been shocked. Lena turned to face the agent standing in the doorway with a look that rivaled most attack dogs.

“T-there’s a secure call, M-ma’am,” he continued under her scrutiny. “from the sit-room. It’s a-an emergency.”

The agent looked like Lena was threatening not only his life, but also the life of a most beloved pet—serves him right. She turned back to Kara who had only just managed to regain her composure at the whiplash of emotions swirling about the room.

“I’m sorry, please excuse me.” She said before setting down her mug and practically fleeing the room.

Kara remained standing in the middle of the room with her mug of cocoa as cold panic replaced all the warmth she had felt only moments ago.

“H-hey, Richard… um, did you catch the Skin’s game?” she tried.

“Ma’am.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s baseball season.” He said with a crooked smile.

“Sure, okay.” She glanced about the room under his careful surveillance for a little before facing him again, “There’s no chance you could keep this between us, right?”

“Ma’am?”

“Could you maybe not tell my sister about what just happened?” Kara asked as the blush returned to her cheeks.

“I’ve got fifty bucks riding on you two not kissing until after the State of the Union, so it’d actually be a huge service to me if you kept it quiet until then.” He said with a smile.

“Deal.” She said as Lena returned to the room with a somber expression.

“We’re going to have to cut this evening short. The training base in Taiwan has just been destroyed.” Lena took a deep breath and took her mug from Kara’s proffered hand.


	20. It's Just Dinner, Steve

After a much-needed cold shower and a long brunch with her son, Lena returned to the oval office shortly before noon to find the senior staff already waiting for her. They all looked a little worse for wear, which meant word about last night’s attack had made its rounds about the building. James was even wearing a freshly pressed shirt so the news must’ve hit them just as hard.

“Have you thought about a national address?” Cat asked.

James could feel Cat’s subtle flinch as Lena turned to her with the full force of the office behind her marble expression. The dark circles under her eyes only increased the terror factor and James was suddenly very interested in the color of his shoelaces.

“The last thing I want to do is use this tragedy as a political stunt.” Lena practically spat. “The other candidates might spend the entire day praising my actions or waxing poetically about what they would’ve done differently, but they weren’t the ones who gave the order last night.”

“You’ll still have to be the one to break the news to the press,” Cat insisted, “and that’s got nothing to do with political gain.”

“She’ right,” Maggie said, “This is—was, your first ever strike with a body count. What you did last night was very presidential and they can’t hear it from me.”

Lena took a deep breath and rose from her armchair to stand by the large bay windows overlooking the grounds. The sky was a clear blue, dotted with clouds, and the trees in the distance blew gently in the warm breeze. It was officially the start of summer in Washington and soon Conner would insist on campfires and picnics every weekend.

“I don’t know what to tell them, Maggie.” Lena admitted as her eyes welled with the unshed tears from last night. “Somewhere in Vietnam a janitor is mopping the floor like he always does. His family is probably back home sleeping soundly, completely unaware that he will never make it back. Last night we murdered twenty people in cold blood. I just made the least Presidential decision of my entire career.”

-           -           -

Ten minutes later found Kara standing in the back of the room near the TV crews trying not to look too conspicuous. She wasn’t technically part of the White House press corps and therefore wasn’t supposed to be in the briefing room at all, but Rhea was able to sneak her into the back without too many reporters noticing.

She watched Maggie give a brief overview of the events of last night; Taiwan had been in the process of building their second and largest military base on the cost of the Taiwanese Straight. Although the tiny island was no match for the military might of China, they still had every right to defend their borders. Kara listened to Maggie’s voice drone on and on confirming everything the press already knew about the situation. Had Kara been siting with the rest of the print media, she might not have noticed Maggie’s hands shaking behind the podium as she outlined how the base was strictly build for defense before segueing to the pirate attack and China’s involvement.

“And now,” she concluded, “The President of the United States.”

Not a second after Maggie had finished, President Luthor came striding onto the stage as the press secretary faded into the background next to Cat Grant.

“Good afternoon,” Lena said and took a deep breath as the reporters chimed their own greetings; “Last night I ordered our armed forces to attack and destroy China’s satellite embassy in Vietnam in response to the unwarranted, unprovoked, and malicious attack on Taiwan’s new coastal military base. This indirect and covert attack on Taiwan cost the lives of both Taiwanese and American personnel.”

Kara saw the reporters in the room trying frantically to jot down as many notes as possible. This was certainly an unprecedented first for the Luthor administration and Kara felt her jaw drop at the news.

“We have tried to be the bigger party. We have tried leading the way. We have tried the turning the other cheek to China’s increased aggression towards their former province, but the time has come to stand our ground and support Taiwan in their infancy as an independent nation.”

Lena gave one last hard look to the cameras at the back of the room before opening the floor for questions.

“Was there anything at the base that could’ve been seen as offensive, rather than defensive, about the base in Taiwan?”

“No. This was a Naval training base only. The warships had no weapons of any kind and flew internationally recognized flags identifying them as such. The base had been under construction and undergoing routine training sequences for a year before the American personnel arrived to aid in the training.”

While Maggie effortlessly ran the podium of her briefing room, Kara could tell the President was feeling a bit off-kilter due to her surroundings. She was obviously used to dealing with a crowd and answering questions, but the intimacy of the room must have been throwing her off. She seemed to get her sea legs after one or two more questions about the base, but then everything went out the window.

“Madam President, there’s an unconfirmed report that you were with reporter Kara Danvers when you heard the news. Can you comment?”

Kara felt her heartbeat triple in speed and pled to whoever was listening that no one would turn to look at her. Thankfully for her, no one even knew she was in the room aside from Rhea, who didn’t so much as twitch in her general direction. She watched Maggie’s face pale and saw Cat’s elbow dig subtly into her side. The President for her part didn’t even seem fazed. In fact, she seemed more confused about why the question had come up in the first place.

“Yes, we had just finished eating dinner.” She responded as Maggie returned to her side by the podium.

“Last question!” Maggie called out.

“Would you care to comment on the status of your relationship with Ms. Danvers?” the reporter asked.

Kara could tell from Maggie’s face alone that the idiotic reporter who asked that would be getting nothing to publish for a few weeks. Not that’s she’d ever admit it, but she _was_ curious to see how Lena would respond to the man’s inquiry.

“I’m not entirely sure I understand what you’re trying to get at, Steve, but we just had dinner.” Lena said with a bit of tilt to her head.

“Can you tell us if she spent the night?” another reporter shouted from the back. Kara felt her cheeks burn at the implication alone, but thankfully Lena was able to maintain her composure.

“Just to be clear,” she began, “You’re asking me about a woman eating dinner at the White House after I just told you that a minimum of thirty people have been killed in the past twelve hours.”

If looks could kill, the two reporters would have been reduced to a pile of ash on the floor. Even the rest of the press corps was siding with Lena on this one. There was no doubt that things were going to get out of control in the near future now that her trips to the residences were out there, but this was not the proper forum.

Maggie ushered the President off the stage and back into the depths of the west wing to a resounding chorus of questions and pleas for information from the press. Kara finally remembered she was a topic piece standing in the midst of reporters hungry for a scoop and she promptly fled to her car before going home for the day. Suddenly her idea of attending the State of the Union and publishing her article after the party was turning into a terrible idea.


End file.
